


Nos Manere (we remain) - a story of survival at sea.

by DarkStar88



Category: Subnautica (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Roleplay, Survival
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-09
Updated: 2019-10-10
Packaged: 2020-11-28 14:36:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 24,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20968175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkStar88/pseuds/DarkStar88
Summary: Seconds from destruction, a selfless act results in two survivors together in a tiny lifepod instead of one. But what will it take to climb back up the the ladder of civilization after being kicked off the top rung? And what if the people in charge of your survival had been completely clueless - or worse?Interspersed with self-immersive experiences by the author into the situation of the main characters.





	1. Hard landing

We all have moments where we wish for something left behind. From something as important as a childhood friend in our old hometown to something as trivial as a wallet left behind on the counter. A month ago I wished for my hoverdriver's license when I was pulled over for speeding in a moment of bad judgement. Regret and loss go hand-in-hand with self-judgement - blame for not thinking ahead or choosing more wisely. Even, sometimes, when we couldn't possibly have known about the imminent need.

Predicting the future has always been a tricky business for us mere mortals. Even something as simple as discerning the weather a few days from now is uncertain enough. In the blink of an eye one's priorities may be drastically altered. Someone in perfect health may suddenly be in desperate need of medical supplies after a car wreck. A tent might be an amusing toy to a CEO one minute, then invaluable shelter the next when his private jet crash-lands.

So it is that once again I find myself awake late at night in my circular 'apartment' unable to find either the sleep that I need or the answers that I want. With sunlight long since gone my only illumination is from the faintly shining screen of my PDA. The only sound is the occasional bass moans of a Reefer, echoing throughout the metallic structure of my new home.

And on the opposite end of the habitat I wonder what Katy will be missing.

\-----

Prologue

Supposedly, hindsight is 20/20 with rose-tinted glasses. I've found that it is more akin to a dim mirror clouded by self-doubt, inflated ego and misremembered facts all meshing together like the details in a photograph with bad focus. Though in my case the facts are more...missing...than misremembered. Courtesy to the "mild head trauma" I suffered during the violent descent in Lifepod 5. More specifically a sizable lump on my forehead that lasted for a week coupled with around an hour's worth of memory lost. Gone. A blank page in my novel. My ever-helpful digital companion even cheerfully stated that my wounds were "considered an optimal outcome". I can only stand amazed at the profound ignorance in that statement, likely thanks to whatever cut-rate keyboard monkey Alterra hired to program the PDA's AI. If I ever am able to get my hands on the person who wrote that line I think I'll enjoy giving them a personal education in the meaning of the word 'pain'. Assuming that any unknown and untreated long-term effects of having a bad sector on my meaty hard drive don't kill me or render me a drooling vegetable long before then.

I've reconstructed what happened from about a half hour before the Aurora was fatally struck to the time we hit the water (mostly) intact from a combination of recovered data logs and the memories of my erstwhile shipmate. Unfortunately while she managed to escape serious physical damage, her emotional state suffered as bad a blow as my noggin had. Katy never could be described as an individual who took well to sudden change of any kind for a long list of reasons. Not that one could expect being half of the >1% of the crew to survive the shootdown of a capital-class ship on an uncharted world to be a pleasant jaunt for anyone short of a suicidal thrill-seeker. Much less being suddenly reclassified as several steps down the food chain shortly thereafter.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. My journey on the Aurora itself began a couple years ago when I managed to shine enough shoes and kiss enough backsides to earn a promotion as a "Data Entry Specialist" from the minimum security prison cubicle farm on my homeworld that I'd been employed at until that point. The real kicker is that while the spot on a spaceship was guaranteed, the choice of ship wasn't. I could have easily as ended up as the resident computer nerd on an ice hauler. Instead I landed a job which is practically a lottery win since college for the masses finally became unaffordable at the close of the 21st century. I won't dwell on how this benefited me outside a better work life as I've spent enough nights crying myself to sleep. Suffice it to say I was on top of the world. Figuratively and literally from the first time I was aboard for liftoff. At my one-year review you couldn't have got me off that ship for my weight in gold-plated platinum bars studded with diamonds.

A little line from the Good Book has hammered itself into my brain every night since the crash: "Pride goeth before destruction and an haughty spirit before a fall."* A fall all the way from the edge of a planet's gravity well to its surface, in my case, which I think is as far as one CAN fall short of swan-diving into a black hole. And I imagine the aftermath of the destruction and fall I survived would have gone quite differently if I hadn't done something that you should definitely not do in case of emergency.

I went back when the alarms sounded.

Not very far, in my defense. Perhaps 20 feet around the corner to the woman I'd just passed heading for a laboratory. She was sprawled on the floor scrabbling for the PDA that had been knocked from her hand. Call it adrenaline-fueled chivalry mixed with pure survival instinct. Partly because we both had seconds to get off that ship before an explosion or decompression reduced us to a state reminiscent of uncooked hamburger. And partly because there had been no training for this kind of an emergency. I still remember someone screaming which way were the lifepods as I half-dragged, half-carried a wailing Kate.

Crying. Someone was crying. Was it me? My head hurt enough. It felt like a squad of impact hammers were pounding on my skull in unison. And that smell, what the hell WAS that? Like some Einstein had gone and microwaved their PDA times a hundred.

I managed to force my eyelids open despite the pain. Something stared back at me from a few feet away. It took a moment for my brain to process that the disheveled figure with the patchy tearstreaked face was the shipmate I'd half-dragged to the pod with me. Her brown eyes were absolutely wild with fright, like some animal caught in a trap with a hungry predator closing in. My logical capacity wouldn't recover for some time and I remember only vaguely registering the situation. A display screen with ominous red words. An access hatch ripped open and wires spilling out, which to my battered brain resembled the intestines of someone with their abdomen torn open. And last but certainly not least two very different colors visible out the two different exit hatches.

One by one logical thoughts began to wander back through the fog of pain and confusion. There had been a ship. A much bigger ship. Way more people. Big boom. Lots of screaming, alarms, grabbing something or someone, then the lifepod. And then a crash? Yes, definitely a crash. From the state of the lifepod we hadn't exactly touched down in a field of roses. But at least we'd landed in one piece. A lot of poor people were going to be so inconvenienced. Hopefully the data banks had been backed up recently or my manager was going to grill my backside for dinner.

I'd like to say that I magically snapped out of my injured stupor and leaped to soothe the fair maiden, but I'd also like not to lie more than the CEO of Alterra. In truth I wasn't in much of a state to console anyone else even if she'd been in any mood to listen. For her part Kate didn't utter a single word while my half-focused eyes wandered about the tiny interior. Only when I managed to think that somebody should go fix that electrical problem and heaved myself (mostly) upright to lurch toward the storage compartment at one end of the escape pod did she finally pipe up.

"There's. Nothing." she said in a cracked voice. The words seemed to come out as painfully as if she were a lifelong smoker on her deathbed. A combination of screaming and crying for an unknown amount of time while I sat slumped in my seat had nearly rendered her physically incapable of speaking. About then I noticed that she was clutching a fire extinguisher in her arms like a frightened child to a teddy bear. Something about her traumatized state set off an alarm bell in my head, partly because that tool would make a decent makeshift blunt weapon in the hands of a fellow survivor lashing out in the aftermath of severe trauma. And I was unarmed, injured and alone. The odds were definitely not in my favor even if I fancied myself as a fighter instead of at thinker. Which I didn't.

Still, my options were rather limited. Turning my back on her for a moment seemed at least preferable to exiting the lifepod empty-handed with destination unknown. So I popped the latch and made a mental note to confiscate the survival knives that would be included as part of the standard kit before one ended up between my ribs.

Only there wasn't a survival knife, packed neatly in a carbon-fiber holster.

Or a repair tool.

Or a flashlight.

Or any of several other items what were quite essential in a survival situation.

Rattling around loose in the compartment were a couple flares, a few water bottles and a pair of nutrient blocks. Nothing more.

In an instant I went from being half-coherent and recovering to a babbling wreck on my knees. I must have pawed a dozen times through that compartment with my hands shaking like a drunkards' from maddened terror. Hoping for something else to be hidden in a corner or under a wrapper. Anything. I had flashbacks to younger days, desperately searching for a certain paper assignment or textbook at our churchmouse-poor school, amidst a disorganized stack with minutes to find what I needed. Hoping beyond hope for something I just knew had to be there and wondering why it wasn't. But at last I had to admit defeat. My eyes came to rest to the neat computer printing on the packaged nutrient block in my hand, seeing but not reading. My mind tried to grapple with the reality of the situation.

We were stranded God-knows-where in a half-busted lifepod with not so much as a screwdriver to our name, and our entire food supply could be held in my two trembling arms.

I unceremoniously dumped the meager collection back in the storage unit as Kate stared back at me with a blank, tear-streaked expression that screamed "I told you so". My choices were as few as they were unappealing. Option one: munch on a single day's worth of rations while praying someone else in a better situation found us. Option two: stick our noses out into this strange new world in the hope of somehow improving our own situation. So with grim resolution I headed for the ladder. From her huddled position in the chair Kate croaked pitifully about not leaving her alone, to come stay with her.

That was the first hard choice I made after the crash: to leave a frightened woman behind in a barely-seaworthy escape pod. It would be the first of many.

Mercifully the top hatch popped open freely. Something uttered a trilling squawk above my head just as I emerged, and out of the corner of one eye I saw a silvery flying pancake flap away into the sky. A rush of salt air filled my lungs, eliciting a string of throat-rending coughs as my body took the opportunity to clear out the greasy smoke from the pod's interior. The relief of breathable atmosphere lasted for about the five seconds it took for my eyes to adjust to the sight of the Aurora on the horizon. Or rather, what was left of her. What had once been a pristine white hull had holes big enough to fit a house. Chunks missing the size of city blocks, uncontrolled fires big enough to barbeque a battle tank. I'd never seen such destruction outside of a video in history class. Capital-class ships just plain didn't crash and catch on fire out of nowhere. It just didn't damn happen short of an inter-system war, much less to a civilian ship! What the hell had we even hit, an old minefield?

My PDA chimed in unhelpfully. "The Aurora suffered orbital hull failure. Cause: unknown. Zero human life signs detected. Extreme damage detected. Hazardous materials and radiation containment failures are highly likely."

I barely resisted a sudden urge to pitch the unwelcome messenger as far as I could throw it. There went Plan A flying off with the angels. Even if the scanner wasn't 100% correct, to swim maybe half a mile to a ship that badly crippled was suicide. I had no tools, no backup and only the flimsy "indoor" pressure suit I'd been wearing. That left exactly one option. To search around for anything useful in walking distance from a repair tool to an escape pod in slightly better condition. Or rather, anything within swimming distance. My eyes turned warily to the expanse of azure waves that stretched far over the horizon. It looked as distinctly uninviting to an air-breathing mammal such as myself as it does now. Not only is drowning a distinctly unpleasant way to die, large bodies of water were reputed to contain things with a frightening number of sarp teeth. Diving into a 10 foot deep swimming pool was the limit of my experience. This brave wet new world was far larger...and definitely "swim at your own risk."

I don't remember how long I sat sprawled on the top of the crippled pod, my stomach tying itself in knots while a terrified Kate bawled for me to come back inside. Human emotions are so powerful that they can so deeply affect reality itself. For instance, time passing far slower when you're in mortal terror. Not all the visits with HR departments and school principals combined could hold a candle to the soul-wrenching fright that was beginning to break through my initial shock.

At length I turned down to face my companion with her puffy, tear-streaked face illuminated by the lightning-like flashes of the sparking wires. "Kate. The ship touched down, but it's a mess. I'm going to have to see if any supplies or spare parts dropped nearby or we're toast. Don't touch anything. I will be back in a half hour or less."

Her whimpers turned into a frantic shriek as I grimly climbed down the orange steps to the waterline, touched a wrist-mounted button on my suit, took a deep breath, crossed my fingers...and jumped.

"You miss all of the shots you don't take." - old Earth folk wisdom.


	2. Interlude: Alterra Docupedia - Clearance level: General access - EPSI Mk IV

The Environment Pressure Suit, Indoor Mark 4 (pronounced "Epp-See") is the most recent in the EPSI line of light-duty protective suits designed to straddle the line between "shirtsleeve mobility" and exosuits that provide superior protection at the cost of restricting the wearer's movements. It has been made standard to all Alterra employees whose position is rated above Hazard Level Green, or employed where there is an exposure risk to a non-breathable environment. Contractors may lease or purchase their suits for a nominal charge.

Besides the self-sealing faceplate with Heads-Up Display introduced in the EPSI Mk III, the IV model includes a small air supply in the form of a flexible airtight bladder around the collarbone area. Users can connect to an external air supply via a MicroAire connector at the back of the neck which in turn can provide a standard or mixed-gas supply for an extended period of time. The suit can also automatically purge and refill the air bladder if the user enters or reenters in a breathable atmosphere. Power is provided via a 50% larger FLIP (Flexible Lithium-Ion-Polymer) battery, which can be recharged wirelessly or with a USB-E connection of sufficient power output. When the suit detects a user has entered a non-breathable environment, or upon manual activation, a check valve is activated to cut off the outside environment. This provides approximately 45 seconds for the user to move to a breathable environment or connect an external air/mixed-gas supply.

As with all EPSI suits a key design consideration is for a constant monitoring from one or more remote locations to increase worker safety. Suit system diagnostics and real-time monitoring of the wearer's vital lifesigns can be linked to a larger network, an Extended Personal Area Network (E-PAN) of individuals within a short range, a vehicle with a compatible communications array or all of the above. A highly common attachment is a small cylindrical head-mounted radio, often called an "EPSI Pen", to increase the range of the suit's wireless communications.

While the EPSI line continues to benefit Alterra and its employees with drastic reductions in time-lost work accidents and on-the-job injuries, users are cautioned that the suit is not to be considered a substitute for a rated hazard suit. Notable limitations include but are not limited to the following:  
\-----Inadequate protection from NBC (Nuclear, Biological, Chemical) hazards such as transmissible diseases, elevated radiation levels and harmful chemicals such as strong acids/bases.  
\-----No built-in air filtering for inhalation hazards such as products of combustion or chemical smoke.  
\-----The air supply in "auto refill" mode cannot always accurately detect when it is safe to purge/refill the air bladder, occasionally resulting in an intake of non-breathable/toxic gases or liquids. Injury and loss of life has occurred when the onboard sensors have malfunctioned due to damage, deliberate tampering, etc.  
\-----No appreciable protection from projectile dangers or thermal hazards; minimal protection against electrical hazards.  
\-----Total battery exhaustion will disable the automatic check valve.


	3. First Day Afloat

"What goes up always comes down. What goes down doesn't always come up." - Anonymous.

My first reaction was to come very close to throwing up.

The ocean kingdom below me resembled nothing so much as a random jumble of hills and valleys thrown together like the pieces of a dropped 3D puzzle. Gigantic pipe-like structures twisted among the seascape while schools of bizarre fish flitted by with their tails glowing. It was pure untamed nature in all her glory; a living chaos of rock and flora and fauna that immediately made one feel ant-like. Especially if you happened to have a horrendous case of acrophobia. It took every ounce of self-control I could muster to not barf in my suit as I pulled my head above water to take several deep breaths before trying again. Ditto in the failure department when I made the mistake of gazing down a particuarly deep chasm whose gloomy depths seemed to hunger for my very soul...

Face up. Deep breaths. Focus. No barfing, nope, not happening, no way, need that food thankyouverymuch, stomach please behave yourself now if you never do again. And besides it isn't nice to pollute the ocean.

About the fourth time I managed to stick my face under the surface long enough to control both panic and nausea long enough to think straight. "Straight" being the operative word. Lacking any reference of height the nearest cliff face was at least two standard building levels in a straight line down, give or take. One small pile of tangled wreckage sprawled just underneath it. But as I squinted and cursed the schools of fish obstructing my sight I realized that most of the 'small' pieces were in fact sections of hull beams that far outsized me. The laws of physics being what they are, even counting for the 'lifting' effect of the water, hefting the smallest beam visible would be a Herculean effort just to get off the seabed. Getting it in the lifepod for our fabricator (assuming it worked) to disassemble was out of the question entirely.

"Metal, metal everywhere and not a scrap to build with." I mused forlornly.

The sinking feeling in my stomach provided the motivation I needed to release my death-grip on the pod and take my first venture downward. Not knowing what I would find - if anything - nor what I would do if I did. It was a good thing my swimming teacher couldn't see me right about then. Between lacking swim equipment and mentally whimpering for mommy the entire way, my form would have earned an F- right along with my planning. Misjudging my own momentum I plowed headfirst into the seabed. All five senses were instantly reduced to "OUCH! MY HEAD!" and "DROWNINGDROWNINGUPUPUPUP!". I rocketed for the surface as ungracefully as I had left it, barely stopping to claw at some ball-like object lying nearby.

I broke the water's surface coughing my lungs out and swearing like a drill seargant with a stubbed toe. The object in question wasn't immediately familiar to me in its current state (busted with wires hanging out) but whatever it was, it had to be worth the trip. With the top of my head pounding I clambered up the ladder, dropping my poor prize down the hatch the instant it was within reach...only to immediately regret my haste when a blood-curdling shriek came from below.

For a moment the world froze around me, and I peered over the edge expecting to see Kate lying in a pool of her own blood. I'd killed her. First I'd left her alone then I'd -  
"Oh my FREAKING GOD! You IDIOT are you THINKING or are you just TRYING TO KILL ME? Like we both almost didn't die ALREADY you freaking retarded overpaid NERD!"

Relief gave way to foreboding when I realized that a traumatized and now angry survivor stood between me and the only working fabricator within miles, if not the entire planet. I let a few minutes pass both for her to cool down as well as for me to mentally calculate my chances of finding another lifepod. Finally, muttering apologies the whole way down (and keeping a careful eye on the way Kate held the fire extinguisher) I touched the fabricator's power panel while begging every deity that ever existed that it worked. I was also keenly aware that if Kate sensed I'd become a threat to her own survival the one lying in a pool of blood might be me. But my fevered prayers and Kate's furious ranting cut off flat when the fabricator neatly unfolded, the bottom tray sitting invitingly before our eyes.

"It works. Thank...thank everything, ever. We can make stuff. We'd be so screwed if this didn't work right now, " I started babbling in relief. With more anticipation than a dozen kids at Christmas I plunked the soggy sphere onto the tray and touched the "deconstruct" option. In a flash the molecular assembly array neatly stripped it down into...

Two very useful and very small spheroids of titanium.

The pod's interior grew very quiet save for the sizzling and snapping from the damaged electrical panel. An unsaid but clearly expressed "you've got to be kidding me" was written all over Kate's face. "Galactic champion dumbass of the century" was written all over mine.

"I guess I'll need to...go back...for...another...thing?" I squeaked.

Kate slowly turned her head to face me much like a cannon turret taking aim at a target.

\-----

The pile of wreckage was even smaller than I'd thought after a couple trips. Besides a chunk of hull plating and a few odd bits scattered around there just wasn't anything useful. Enough salvageable Titanium to make a bathtub out of, sure. But nothing besides Titanium. No tools, no spare batteries, not a single Vac-Pac in sight. My first scavenging site was played out alread.

"We're already out of luck," I bleakly remarked as I ran off a compressed-air tank for each of us, the only useful thing I could even build. "We'll have to go farther away."

Kate shook her head furiously and shrunk back into her seat. "No. Can't go away. Got to stay close to where we landed or the rescue teams won't find us. Remember in Orientation - stay with your vehicle. It's a lot easier to find than a lone person wandering off."

My eyes rolled so far back in my head I saw a glimpse of my brain. "Rescue? Even assuming there IS anyone LEFT to rescue anyone else, we don't have time to wait. In two days at most we'll be on the slow road to death-by-dehydration thanks to whatever dusthead robbed the storage compartment. Short of a supply crate being dropped at our feet our only prayer of living long enough to see next week is going...out there."

"Out where? Do you even know which way you're going?! You're going to swim right out and be food for a - a big-swimmy-thing with big teeth!"

I couldn't even muster a grin at Kate's sad attempt at describing a predator. "Maybe. If I could at least find a damn knife I'd have something to poke it with. If I could find silicon rubber like the fabricator says. God knows where I'm gonna GET silicon rubber because all I see are a bunch of rocks and funny looking fish out there." There was a truly disheartening amount of red-lined items on the fabricator's list. We needed copper to make batteries, but the only way I knew how to get copper involved digging gigantic holes in the ground. In a pinch maybe the right kind of sand could supply raw silica for glass, but what about sulfur or silver? I barely even knew what they looked like. And even then only because nerdy little me actually paid attention in Geology class. How the hell would someone like Kate have known what to look for? Or Jackson from Cargo Storage or...pretty much anyone...

A foreboding thought begun to slink into my mind at the epiphany. The fabricator had a nice pretty list of what you needed and a little icon - but there wasn't the faintest hint about how or where to get what you needed. And that was one hell of an oversight to get by the tens of thousands of people who'd designed the Aurora, especially for something as critical as a guidance in a survival situation.

Kate must have started to notice the grimness on my face so I abruptly changed the subject. "I saw some kind of tall plants. I'm gonna rip off a leaf or three, see what they're good for. If you want to make yourself useful while I'm gone be my guest."

"You mean you want me to go OUT THERE?" Her voice rapidly rose to a pitch and volume suitable for shattering glass. "In all that water?"

"I'll give you three guesses," I said dryly as I fitted my new tank to the valve at my neck.

"How? I don't even have a compass!"

"Then pick a direction and swim that way for five minutes. Or hell, try to grab some fish for dinner or find another pile of wreckage for me to pick over. Just do something besides get yourself hurt."

Kate rapidly devolved into a babble of noise that I quickly tuned out as I climbed up the latter. I didn't realized it at the time but real soul-shaking panic was starting to set in, and I was starting to devolve to the male instinct of Doing Something to keep it at bay. Feelings were not on my list of Things to Care About when it was a real question if I would be able to save my own butt. I couldn't lock her in the lifepod (literally - the hatches don't have a lock), I couldn't stay to babysit her. The only faint chance I had was if I swum out into the deep blue sea. That chance would get smaller by the hour until I was too hungry or tired to move at which point we were both good as dead. It was cold survival logic. And it would come right back to bite me in the butt harder than a cyber-Doberman on guard duty.

I took my own advice after a fashion as I swam out from the lifepod, noting that the sun was on my right-hand side as I dog-paddled across the surface. What looked like a short distance took longer than I thought as the waves battered me about like a cork and I had the vague feeling that maybe I should have at least given Kate a pointer or two. But since I'm worse at admitting a mistake than I am at apologizing I merely swam all the faster to the forest of alien seaweed. On closer examination they looked astonishingly like the fake leis handed out at the Aurora's indoor 'beach' with their dark green leaves seemingly tangled around a center string. But unlike the cheap plastic, they definitely did NOT come apart easily! They were impossibly slick and absolutely refused to tear off despite their seeming fragility. No doubt there was native sealife with teeth equipped to nibble off a mouthful, but all my profanity-laced tugging proved fruitless.

With an idea to brace against the seafloor for better leverage I started going hand-over-hand using the main 'stalk' a sort of rope for rapid descent. I'd made it about halfway down when my eye spotted a flat section of paneling moving along the seabed. I was a second away from abandoning my newest discovery and swimming after it like a man possessed when I noticed it wasn't drifting. It was being carried. By a fish I hadn't seen yet, with no bright shiny spots along its snakelike body or paddle-shaped tail.

What it did have was teeth. A whole lot of them in a mouth large enough to fit a yardstick with room to spare. It even looked like it had teeth on its back, squarish ones, like those in a chainsaw.

My heart leapt up through my throat and into my skull where it hugged my brain for comfort. Even with my lousy eyesight this was undoubtedly a predator fish at least as long as I was tall. I was unwanted company at best, a snack at worst, unarmed, alone and unhelpfully backlit by clusters of glowing orangish pods that were hanging on some of the vines. The only thing I could do was try to wrap myself in the cluster of weeds in a pitiful attempt to hide as my oxygen counter dwindled.

I ran too low on oxygen and patience before the monster below me was completely out of sight. A hunk of the pods came loose in my white-knucked grasp as I fled in the opposite direction of the lifepod, trailing along behind me like party streamers. Fortunately the fish-with-too-many-teeth seemed more interested in the piece of metal than the human who was about to need fresh underwear. I glided between the greenish vines with the ease of a prima ballerina dancing a solo as I awkwardly flail-swam toward relative safety.

Kate was engaged in examining the fabricator screen as I hauled myself up through the bottom hatch, a collection of various plants strewn about her feet.

"H-hope you h-had better luck than me," I stammered, untangling the mess of bulbous nodes. "Stay out of the big plants. Big fish, lots of teeth and - what the hell IS all this stuff?"

"I don't know! I just grabbed some of everything!" She wasn't kidding either. On closer inspection there was everything from a plate-sized slab studded with something shiny, to brightly-tipped weeds, to some kind of bush with tiny white pearls even a couple puckered purple mushroom-like plants. "But the machine says none of it is good for making anything! We're still screwed!"

I sighed. "Correction, Kate - none of it is good for making anything by itself. You don't make a cake from just flour. You need flour AND eggs AND sugar."

"What's a cake?"

So help me God... She must have been raised on synthesized food. "Here. Give me that red shiny...plate...thing. Now look carefully at the list. See where the entry on computer chips is? One of the three 'ingredients' is green. Green is good. But we still need copper."

"Okay wise guy, so where the heck do we get copper?"

"From somewhere down in the ground. And how did you break one of these off, anyway? Don't tell me you hit it with your air tank!"

"Uh...no, I jumped on it."

"Well thank goodness for female ingenuity," was all I could think to say. "Let's see if these squishy bulbs I brought home while fleeing from my life are good for anything." I draped the bulbs in a neat pile on the fabricator's plate.

"New alien material detected. Analyzing. High viscous fluid and silicone content. Recommendation: source of lubricant, essential in construction of vehicles and power plants, or the manufacture of synthetic rubber." My jaw dropped practically to my belt. It was the best news I'd heard all day, except...

"Where did you say you got these things, again?" asked Kate.

\-----  
Omake:

As I considered what to name the newly-discovered plants, the juvenile delinquent in me kicked in gleefully. So even with nobody around to hear it, I couldn't resist joking out loud "Look! A plant with orange boobs!" I was a solitary male in desperate need of relief, comic and otherwise. Sue me.

The PDA chimed in over my suit radio. "New plant discovered: Boobvine. Seed clusters approximately Size A."


	4. Darkest Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Being short on food and time is bad enough. Going without light is even worse.

The little man in my brain was throwing a screaming temper tantrum the entire distance back to what my PDA had dubbed the "Kelp Forest". This is crazy. This is stupid. This is absolute suicide. You can't possibly be going BACK! Have you lost what little is left of your mind? .

But back I went. Even the chance of having a vehicle or power was literally worth risking my life. And that was a funny thing, really, given how often I'd taken it for granted. Back home I could have gone from Point A to B in safety riding in anything from a hoverbike to a rented luxury car. Any day of the week and twice on Sunday. Now I was exhausting myself swimming alone through a carnivore-ridden ocean with the nearest lifeguard several light years away. Not even Alterra would have approved letting us 'employees' take such a risk. But there was no time to worry about the sudden change in circumstances. To quote an old author, "the possibility of a man being ripped limb from limb in the next five minutes concentrates the mind beautifully." Unfortunately, it tends to get concentrated on things besides survival.

All I could think to do was keep to the surface since the toothy fish seemed to be stalking the seabed. Gambling again on the cover of the weedy vines I used one to descend like a commando fast-roping from a helicopter. Once again my nervous eyes spotted the dark saw-backed figure lurking among the waving vines. Then another. And then another. Just fantastic - instead of being solitary predators they were pack animals. Mental note, where there's one sawfish, there's probably another. I denuded the nearest vine of it's bulbous seedpods while trying to ignore the clouds of greenish blood when the predators snapped up a passing meal. The pods were bulky as heck and had to be trailed behind me. I felt for all the world like I was clumsily hauling a bundle of helium balloons on the way home from an old-fashioned birthday party. On the way back I spotted a fairly large glowing ball nestled in a small clump of seagrass under a rocky outcrop. It looked big enough to be intriguing, but curiosity killed more than the cat.

Kate was nursing her hand when I returned, whimpering like a kicked cyberdog about how one of the purple mushrooms had 'burned' her.

"All I DID was squeeze it," she wailed as I knelt down by her with a sigh. The skin was puffy white and red - no doubt painful, but hardly a precursor to her hand 'melting off'.

"Chemical burn. Damn 'shrooms must be acidic as all hell. Hope the Wall Doctor* still works," I said as I dubiously eyed the flickering status lights on the front panel. "We can't afford to get seriously hurt or we'll be even further up the creek than we already are." Mercifully when I popped it open it had still managed to create a basic medical kit despite the extensive damage to the lifepod.

Both the minuscule packet of ointment and the tiny length of synthcloth bandages ran out quickly as I treated Kate's injuries. Even as I kept my big mouth shut the thought of "what about next time" loomed over us both. There wasn't even enough fresh water to run over where the acid had ravaged her skin.

There were still a few of the lumpy purple mushrooms strewn about the lifepod floor. I carefully grasped them by the edges to unceremoniously dump them out the bottom hatch, mentally noting not to put my bare hands or feet on the floor in case of residual acid.

"At least we know they're good for something," I stated as I watched the last of them drift off into the endless blue. "Too bad they're not edible but we could make a battery out of them if we can find some lead."

"What? Lead messes your head up, everyone knows that!"

"Kate...that's only if you do something really stupid like EAT paint with lead in it. Which they haven't made since before the first moon colony. Or don't pay for a dust mask or gloves if the Big A** has you working with lead in some way. And even then they'll have warning signs everywhere and make you sign at least three waivers saying that you were such an idiot you decided to skimp on safety gear to afford more vapes or booze."

"Fine, whatever. So how are you going to make a battery out of poison plants and lead?"

"Lead-acid battery. We used them all the time where I grew up. Sturdy as hell and simple enough a kid can build one. Just don't spill the stuff on yourself."

"Fine. Let me know when you've built one big enough to send a distress beacon."

I chose not to continue the conversation before Kate dug past my confident exterior to discover the flaws inherent in such an ambitious idea. Besides having to find lead in the first place, lead-acid batteries tended to be...hefty. Powering a viable surface-to-space distress beacon (which we didn't have) with a battery of that kind would need one big enough to double as a boat anchor. As well as a power source to charge it with, which we ALSO lacked.

At the moment our personal 'batteries' were of far more concern. While not actually injured Kate was out of action. We were running out of daylight fast; the day-night cycle on this planet seemed to be markedly faster than standard and the ambient light was rapidly dwindling. And with the last of my adrenaline rush wearing out my muscles were beginning to issue some sharp complaints. I had to at least get my mitts on a couple kinds of native fish or plants to make some progress on finding a food source.

I mentally set a half-hour timer before exiting out the bottom hatch with no ceremony, plunging headfirst into a sea of disembodied eyes swirling all about me. A split second of shock gave way to a rising horror that seemed to crawl its way into my soul. In every conceivable direction I was surrounded by dozens of faceless orange orbs that blinked and stared and floated past, tittering amongst themselves in a mockery of voices. They seemed to gaze at me with a strange curiosity; almost as if wondering how soon the interloper in their midst would perish miserably for daring to intrude on their home.

The corner of my mind that wasn't a second away from panic impotently whispered "they're only fish" as I clawed my way to the surface yet again.

Sputtering to the dubious safety of fresh air, I contemplated the wisdom of binge-reading vintage horror novels. A feet away I dimly noticed the splish-splash of one of the orange-eyed fish leaping up from the sea and disappearing into its depths again. "Fish with big glowing eyes. Why. Just why?" I'd have given anything in the world for a good cup of tea along an hour to let the gallon of adrenalin in my system burn off. Instead I had to settle for swearing at the top of my lungs for a couple minutes before thrashing back down into the depths with the intention of grabbing the first thing with fins and beating it to death in a brutish form of self-therapy. I was smarter than any damn FISH and I was gonna go get one!

It's been said that genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration. By that definition, ten minutes later I was the biggest genius in the universe. Or at least wiser if not any smarter.

You ever tried to catch a fish with your bare hands? Not just made a half-hearted effort to make a funny scene but really, truly tried? It's the fastest way to make an idiot out of yourself, short of gambling your life savings in a hand of poker. A lot of people have never seen a live fish before. So try this: grease a wireless mouse and try catching it out of the air as someone throws it past you. Once you master that, do it again while standing shoulder-deep in water, with another friend wading toward you with a knife in either hand to represent the large and unfriendly predators whose territories you're encroaching on. Be sure to skip breakfast for some additional motivation. You now have a remote idea of how bugnut-crazy-hard it is to catch a freaking fish in a survival situation.

As twilight fell, so did my aspirations of stockpiling food. An endless bounty of fish whirled before my very eyes - hundreds of potential meals that were as out of reach as the planet's moon. The goggle-eyed orange fish fled before I could even get close. I had some "almosts" with a vaguely E-shaped fish but still couldn't quite snag one. Without fins, a net or a speargun the only things I could possibly get a hold of were a slow, inattentive fish with stalk-like eyes...and something that was halfway between a terrestrial butterfly and a plastic bag with fins. I opted for a couple of the latter.

Kate's face screwed into a grimace as I popped up through the hatch with the violet-hued "bagfish" flopping in each hand, then squawked in horror when I slammed them hard against the floor in fleshy-sounding splats.

"EWW! What are you DOING?!"

I refrained from saying "killing them" before I plunked one of the dying fish on the fabricator's pad. It twitched faintly as the scanners thrummed. Hopefully my catch was actually nutritious...

Two new entries flickered into being on my EPSI suit's simple heads-up-display. One for food and another for...drinking water? Whaaat?

"HELL YEAH!" I hollered, startling Kate "We've got a water source! Oh man did we just hit the jackpot!" Her expression waffled between utter confusion, repulsion and a look that clearly questioned my sanity. "You can get water from that ugly fish?"

"There's moisture in the bodies of all organic creatures, Biology 101, but THIS fish is basically a swimming water bladder." I noted that two fish were needed and plunked the other on the fabricator pad. It unceremoniously 'deconstructed' the fish and in its place appeared a bottle of water. Drinkable, pure water. Waves of relief washed over my mind as I gently grabbed it like some holy relic. The paper-thin sides crumpled in my hands as I observed the twist-off top and a crudely printed water droplet.

"Water...from a fish?" Kate questioned in a hopeful tone.

"I'll bet we'll see stranger things before long." The top was harder to open than I thought, and a few precious drops spilled out as I tore it open. But whatever one could say about its origins it was indeed water. H20. The universal solvent. Here was our salvation from an excruciating slow death by dehydration. All we had to do was snag a couple Bagfish any time we were thirsty.

Kate actually had a tiny hint of a smile as she quickly drained the bottle. "Are these things easy to catch? Do they bite?"

"Yes they are and no they don't. I'm going back for a few more."

"Get a whole bunch of those - those "

"I'm calling 'em Bagfish."

"Yeah those. Being thirsty sucks."

_~so does being hungry~_ A corner of my brain reminded me. Hooray for self-motivation.  
\-----  
*Common term for the Medical Fabricator  
**Alterra

AN: Deliberately overthinking it - weighty matters

One problem I've run into is just how hefty [i]are [/i]the chunks of ore. Ryley Robinson, like Steve in Minecraft, blithely hauls around enough cubic volume's worth of rock to build a damn castle without so much as breaking stride. Subnautica gives me absolutely no canon numbers so I've had to devise my own. This has, to put it _mildly_, been quite a mental exercise.

For example, let's take the humble lump of [Copper Ore](http://subnautica.wikia.com/wiki/Copper_Ore). For starters we need to know about how much copper-bearing ore weighs. The great and mighty Google tells us that "Copper ore weighs 2.265 gram per cubic centimeter or 2 265 kilogram per cubic meter, i.e. its density is equal to 2 265 kg/m³."

But Copper Ore chunks in-game are hardly nice neat squares. How big are they, exactly?

We need a size reference...how about the handy Fire Extinguisher? A general-purpose extinguisher [like this one ](https://www.amazon.com/First-Alert-1038789-Standard-Extinguisher/dp/B01LTICQYE?psc=1&SubscriptionId=AKIAILSHYYTFIVPWUY6Q&tag=duckduckgo-ffab-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=B01LTICQYE)is 15 x 4 x 4 inches.

[So let's drop the two by each other and see the rough size comparison.](https://imgur.com/gallery/CmN66NP)

Eyeballing the two, the ore chunk is slightly wider and 3/4ths as tall. A cylinder 12 inches by 6 inches. Well and good. Plug the mass into [this nifty calculator](https://www.vcalc.com/wiki/vCalc/Cylinder+-+Weight) and we get around 110 pounds.

...That's one hefty hunka rock.

Also, after much deliberation I've decided to use [this mod](https://www.nexusmods.com/subnautica/mods/140?tab=description) for the simple reason that a good many of the recipes, especially the hand tools are ridiculously simplistic.


	5. Glow away

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The only thing worse than something that can kill you is a danger you can't see.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am beyond your senses, yet I will rob you of them.  
You cannot see me, but you can see what I do.  
I am the judge without bias or pity -  
My sentence for trespass is equal to all.  
I am the fire that gives no heat.  
Lit for a few years, I burn for ten thousand.  
I turn the living into the living dead.  
Water tempers me but cannot quench me,  
I multiply when more of me is added,  
And any more of me than none is deadly.  
I can give as much power as you can take,  
But I will give more than you can handle.  
I cannot be hidden from, only hidden away,  
And woe if your children forget why.  
I shoot neither arrows nor bullets nor darts,  
Yet my aim is unfailing and ceaseless.  
I will outlast your kings and your cities,  
The mountains themselves will have worn 'ere I dwindle...  
For all the very short time I was kindled.
> 
> I am the hidden fire.
> 
> -Original.

Seven minutes.  
  
That was how long it had been since I last checked the time. I needed to rest for a half hour at least before trying to go out again. I had to go out again. We needed more food, more water, more materials than the single sad piece of plating I'd spotted lying nearby on the seafloor.  
  
Seven **bloody** minutes. This was worse than waiting for the end of the school day at gym class. My legs felt like limp noodles, my arms dangled loosely from my shoulders. Every breath I took felt like inflating a portable mattress. Already I felt the beginnings of pain in places I didn't know I had places. This was nothing like the mandatory "recreational exercise" aboard ship. No watching your favorite show on the telescreen while happily riding a bike that went nowhere. No friends to joke or compete with. Just one long sustained effort all alone in a race against your own endurance.  
  
"We...need tools." I wheezed. "Swim fins. A speargun or - or a knife....just something besides my...damn bare hands.  
  
I took a moment to glare in Kate's direction. "Oh yes - and someone else besides me who can SWIM on a planet that's ONE BIG BLOODY OCEAN!"  
  
Kate gave me what I presumed was an obscene gesture. My anger was born of the frustration and terror after I'd insisted she try to at least pick up something useful. She'd clumsily swum under an overhanging rock arch, become spatially disoriented...and panicked. Completely lost her marbles. It had been no small effort just to snag one of her flailing hands to tug in the direction of the surface thirty meters away. By the time our heads broke water my vision had started to narrow from oxygen shortage.  
  
"And now it's too late because it's too dark and I don't have a light," I observed bitterly. "Because some bean counting idiot decided that a survival kit didn't need something as absolutely basic as a ten-credit flashlight."  
  
I tried not to dwell on the _maddening _lack of something so basic. Before I'd had to pause for rest, I had the brilliant idea of cranking up the screen brightness on my PDA to maximum as a makeshift flashlight. It had illuminated a few meters ahead but also blinded me...and, I now realized, made me a perfect beacon for a take-out meal. Just as well I'd given up on that idea.  
  
_Twelve _minutes. Just freaking wonderful. Nobody else besides Kate to talk to. No music. No books. No aspirin. Literally nothing to do but sit in this uncomfortable chair and play "guess when the loose wire sparks" or count the circles on the lifepod's floor. Time dragged on like a groundcar with four flat wheels. I tried to think of something to talk about that didn't involve a friend or a valued possession we'd just lost...and failed miserably. How could I? What was _left?_  
  
At the twenty-five minute mark I completely lost patience with my own goal, leaping out of my seat to scramble up the ladder, slam the hatch shut and drape myself precariously atop the lifepod as I pointedly looked anywhere besides the smoking wreck that had once been a ship. Two moons hung in the alien sky. One motionless and white, like the one back on my home planet, the other an ominous dark orange that seemed to race across the sky. As I watched it gradually eclipsed its smaller brother entirely to leave the silent gleams of starlight to contrast with the swirls of color from fish and flora alike.  
  
I tried to think about the science of all the things both above and below me. How one moon was either geosynchronous or nearly so, and what caused the coloration of closer moon? Massive amounts of iron oxide perhaps? What direction was "north" on a planet where no human had ever set foot? Why did the ecosystem have such a multitude of luminescent lifeforms? Were the fish I had just caught a completely new species, undiscovered to science? All the wonders and whys of the planet I was cast away on swept my conscious mind into a turmoil like a wine cork caught in a hurricane. Wild guesses mixed freely with whimsical fantasies and the occasional sane hypothesis.  
  
After some time - it might have been minutes or hours - my PDA lit up with yet another unwelcome message.  
  
**_"Detecting increased local radiation levels. Trend is consistent with damage to the Aurora's drive core, sustained during planetfall."_**  
  
Well wasn't _that_ just wonderful. Right on cue along with "how do we not starve to death by tomorrow" was the question of "how long before we get boiled alive by radiation?"

\-----

I don't remember what exactly I told Kate that night, if anything, and neither does she. It's probably just as well. Besides heights I'm also terrified as all hell of radioactivity for several reasons. One of them is the **un**official accident reports that get published on the darknet despite Alterra's best efforts. the swim to the field of weedy vines was even more terrifying as it took me closer to the wreck of the Aurora. But if we were going to do anything besides wear ourselves to pieces catching a few fish, we needed rubber for several tools on the list.  
  
The smoldering ruin grew more ominous the closer I unwillingly got, without a rad-suit or any anti-cancer medications. Hell I didn't even have _professional training_ on radiation safety. Just enough knowledge from my science classes to know that water was a very good 'shield' from it. Trouble was that the _water_ was full of ravenous toothy fish. And instead of a proper weapon or stasis projector I had...a fire extinguisher. It certainly wouldn't kill one of the Sawfish, but in a dire emergency it would _hopefully_ jet-propel me out of trouble in time and confuse the monster with a sudden stream of bubbles. It was the flimsiest fig-leaf of a hope with the thinnest coat of logic that I really didn't want to field-test.  
  
I found the glowing pods easily enough - and also their fearsome guardians. In broad daylight they were decently easy to spot from above if you knew what shapes to look for. At least a baker's dozen of the slim predators patrolled the forest of olive-green vines. Worse, most of the seedpods appeared to bud off the middle of the vines, which put them in easy reach of the Sawfish.  
  
The knot in my stomach tied itself even tighter. I was going to trespass on either the favorite hunting grounds or the home of a group of large predators with no fear of humans. About the only faint hope I had was to circle around and find a vine on the edge of their TURF. I've made many ventures into "occupied territory" since that day, but none were as scary as my first time robbing from the den of sharks. The creeping nameless dread of trespassing on forbidden ground came back to haunt me a hundredfold. This was for real. A grab-and-go for sheer survival. These guardians were merciless, the penalty for intrusion a violent death. And worst of all - I didn't even know how much of the dragon's treasure I needed to steal! The entry on my PDA gave me an approximate amount in grams for one "unit", but what was I supposed to do? Weigh the glowing orange pods out on a scale?  
  
The more I looked over the field of vertical vines the worse the situation became. Paddle-tailed shapes roamed alone or in small groups, alternating between ceaselessly patrolling their canyon and darting up to snatch a prey fish with the precision of a guided missile. I shuddered at the thought of a mouthful of inch-long teeth tearing into me without warning. If one of those remorseless predators ambushed me my chances of survival would be thinner than the slim edge of my PDA.  
  
Besides the penalties for being caught was the problem that not all of the vines bore the luminescent fruit. Almost all of the ones that _did _were smack in the middle of Sharkland. But at last I caught sight of a clump of pods right next to a cliff drop-off, by some kind of coral that resembled an overgrown elbow noodle. With a few strong frog-kicks I could get from it to the cluster of pods and - hopefully - get out before I was noticed.  
  
I remember surfacing with my breath coming in discordant heaves. Swimming straight down to one end of the tube to dart inside, praying that I wouldn't be noticed and caught helpless from behind. Bracing my hands against the smooth insides of the beige tube with my oxygen, courage and hope all draining away.  
  
Then leaving  
  
from safety  
  
toward the prize  
  
so close and so far at once  
  
and then I was **_there._**

Up close the pods looked like orange grapes slightly smaller than my fist. The stringy connecting stems tore easily enough in my desperate hands - once I figured out how to get a grip on them. A couple got loose, tumbling slowly toward the bottom of the chasm. One actually popped in a revolting burst of glowing goo when I squeezed too hard.  
  
I spent as much time whipping my head around keeping a desperate lookout for Sawfish as I did trying to get the pods. After a dozen or so were draped clumsily over my one arm I quickly ran into another problem: actually getting my bounty home. The loose bunches of glowing pods threatened to impair my ability to swim if danger came calling and possibly even if it didn't. It was a sudden, maddening problem on the order of winning as many gold bars as you can take...then finding out how much bounty you can't so much as drag out the nearest door. In the middle of contemplating this dilemma my oxygen supply suddenly _bleep-bleeped_ at me. Snagging one last stem's worth of pods, I headed for the surface in a decidedly unbalanced fashion, praying harder than when I was trying not to get caught stealing cookies before a family picnic.  
  
I managed to solve another problem (that of storage) before I arrived back at the lifepod by dumping them all down the end of another giant tube-thing that stuck up above the waterline. Even if a couple pods rolled out the other end the majority of them would form an immobile lump at or near the bottom. "U-Stor-It: Survivor Edition". I could just see the network ratings.  
  
Kate was sitting in the lifepod when I dropped in again (more carefully than last time) to see if the fabricator's list included anything in the line of storage devices, fiddling with a handle with bright orange pillows puffed out from either end.  
  
"The hell is THAT? A sideways boxing glove?"  
  
She scuffed a foot at me. "I don't know what the hell it's called. It's something that makes you go up really fast. But I need to go _down_ fast, and when it's all puffed up I can't go down at all."  
  
"You need to get yourself **literally** deeper into danger like I need to sit on top of the Aurora's drive core. Now out of the way, I need something to carry stuff."  
  
"What stuff?" Kate seemed to remember something and pushed a button on the handle. The "pillows" deflated with a sharp hiss as she looked at me intently? "Food? Water? A radio? Some freaking chocolate bars?"  
  
"Stuff guarded by other stuff with more teeth than a dentist's office." I tuned her next barrage of inane questions out as I reviewed the list. Sure enough, under "Deployables" was the schematic for a waterproof locker. I'd just touched the button when something soft hit me straight above the ear with a gentle **whomp**.  
  
My vision recovered from a very colorful blur to see Kate standing with her new gismo inflated again, looking distinctly annoyed at me. "Will you freaking answer me?! What KIND of pods?"  
  
_Wonderful. She doesn't know how to swim, but by golly she knows how to improvise an attention-getter._  
  
A dozen different ideas from wanton violence to a first-hand demonstration ran through my head, but all that ended up coming out from my mouth was "Big glowy orangy pods because we need rubber and lubricant!"  
  
I grabbed the newly-formed locker from the fabricator and stormed up the ladder with one hand.  
  
Behind me Kate sputtered several unclear protestations, but I distinctly remember hearing her say "Rubber...and...EWWWW!"  
  
_Dammit._  
  
If there was one thing that **wasn't** on my mind at a time like this...

I was still fuming as I floated by the lifepod, debating where to go next. On a random impulse I simply dove straight down instead of heading back out for more "Glowpods". We'd need more than just rubber and a few scraps to save our sorry backsides. Straight up digging for ore was flat out of the question, so the next-best option was to break off a few chunks of rock that stuck out like giant pimples or take a peep into caves for loose mineral-rich nodules.  
  
Handily, there was a cave right underneath us! Never one to turn down an easy opportunity I dropped my new locker at the entrance to peek inside. Some kind of three-finned fish was nibbling on the cave wall next to a pair of protruding rocks, one the mottled color of the cave, one a striking red. Decisions, decisions.  
  
A burbling _lllrrroaaa_ reached my ears a split second before the red pod suddenly split open like a damn banana. Before I could even react my brain hastily registered a Cycloptian thing swimming right at my face with unfriendly intentions.  
  
_roooAAAAAAUUU-_  
  
Without thinking I held the fire extinguisher at arm's length like a holy ward against a vampire, rocketing backwards on a stream of Co2 bubbles praying to escape whatever horrid venom or monstrous set of fangs -  
  
**PHOOOFFF!**  
  
A cloud of white steam appeared where the finny demon had been a second ago, a harmless remnant of a shockwave buffeting me as I stood pinned flat against a rocky overhang. _Kamikaze fish._ Of course. What next?! Little green men from Mars? Curious as to what the hell the thing had been guarding I very c-a-r-e-f-u-l-l-y swam back towards the entrance. The red flower sat open, revealing a curious pile of something shiny yellow. It couldn't be...gold?!  
  
_"Detecting sulfur deposits in the local cave systems. Sulfur is an essential component of the repair tool."_  
  
**Hell yes.** Forget mere gold.  
  
Wary of any further encounters with suicide bombing fish I scooped as much of the granular element as I could into the locker with my hands, whacked a couple loose lumps off with the bottom of the fire extinguisher and bugged out. Some kind of clearish-blue crystals hung from the ceiling of the small cave, but I'd been lucky enough already for one day.

_"Copper is an essential component of all powered equipment. Your probability of survival has just increased to: unlikely, but plausible."_  
  
Well thank you. Just who _wrote _this crap, and who approved it to be on _company-issued property?_ I'd retrieved my entire stock of Glowpods only to discover that an entire armful of them equated to enough silicone-based rubber to make a single pair of fins or a survival knife. Even without Kate over my shoulder this was enough of a debate, and enough of a problem to tie my stomach in a knot. ONE trip to "the Vineyard" had already been enough proximity to short-tempered predators - yet here I was already needing more of the pods they inadvertently guarded. Or _did_ they only guard them inadvertently? Perhaps some local herbivore fancied them as food and the Sawfish in turn fancied **them**.  
  
Finally I came to a decision by the most scientific and impartial method I could think of. Eeeney-meeney-miney-**moe**. A knife. My PDA babbled unhelpfully about some massacre somewhere as the little tool materialized, then the rubber sheath after I picked up the knife itself. I tried not to think too much about how unimpressive my new acquisition was in my current situation as I stuck the sheath into an expandable thigh pocket. What I needed desperately at was a fishing trident or spear, something to keep toothy horrors at arm's length. This was about as useful for defense against an agile predator as a satchel bomb against a hovertank...by the time you got within range to use it you had mostly lost the battle already.  
  
Still it beat going barehanded. Barely.

\-----

My return trip to the dropoff point went as smoothly as could be hoped for, given my terrified state. Along with the last of the pods I decided to make like a lumberjack and hack off a section of the vines itself. The wisdom of doing this from the _middle _of the vine became apparent when I noticed that about twenty feet of leafy green began drifting into my face. I had to scramble to get out of the way before I became tangled in the unanchored mass.  
  
Beating an undignified retreat, I reflected on the laws of physics as I decided to see if there was anything worth picking up on the way home. Lacking any plan I picked a course a few degrees off a straight line. My detour lead me over a hill that sloped further down from the surface. The hill was...depressingly barren save for a single scrap of titanium plating. Perhaps one or two rocky outcrops. As far down as I could see there was nothing else but sand until the hill gave way to uneven rocky edges shaped like the fingers of some warty hand. This way was a definite dead end for the moment and I wasn't eager to dive deeper with such basic equipment.  
  
For a few seconds I glanced at my own shadow, projected on the seabed. I fluttered my hands and watched the figure below do a vague impression of a terrestrial bird. Curiously there was some other shadow to my right composed of two long skinny things that looked oddly like...fish that were...fighting? Mating? Whatever they were engaged in they looked almost like they were right next to -  
  
A guttural snarl ripped through my head just as my brain put 2 and 2 together. I whirled about in time to see one Sawfish driven away by another, and the victor heading right in my direction. They'd been fighting all right - over choice prey. Over **me.**  
  
I stuck both arms out and hit the button to the extinguisher, straight-leg-kicking frantically in a bid to escape. Striking back never even entered my mind. Just escape. But this time my improvised propellant wasn't enough. The fang-filled maw was closing on me at a steady rate. In another five seconds at most I could only hope it missed impaling me on those jagged fangs.  
  
At about the two second mark a frantic idea barged into my brain. Yanking my arms and legs as far sideways as I could, I did a terrified imitation of a bullfighter's dodge. The titanic jaws slammed shut with an impact that reverberated through the water. Rows of dull ivory teeth flashed by - then for one horrible instant I came eye-to-eye with the beast. Pure malevolence shone out of that small grey-green eye; the universal look of someone who wants nothing better than to see you **dead**.  
  
In another second the Sawfish had twisted itself around for another pass, but I was already doing the "pray, spray and swim." It pursued me for a short distance...then suddenly whirled away as it decided I wasn't worth the trouble. As fast as the thing had been on me it had vanished into the endless blue depths.  
  
I half-swam and half-flailed in the water with my breath coming in sobbing heaves, my limbs spasming in the aftermath of adrenaline-fueled terror. The sheer _suddenness _of it all left me frozen in place . Instead of relief at escaping with my life I expected the predator to come roaring back at any moment. Only when my oxygen gauge flashed red did I snap out of my petrified state to swim upwards, gasping as much in fright as in need of fresh air.  
  
Burning tears streamed down my face as I broke the surface, blurring my vision in the bright sunlight. I looked around in the faint hope of someone - anyone - to cry out to. To care that I'd nearly died horribly. To call out to a fellow survivor. To come riding to our rescue in a submersible. But the only answering sound was the piping twitter of alien fish that mocked my fear.


	6. Endangered species

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Getting too close to a natural hazard is a painful lesson. Trespassing can be a fatal one.

ittle comfort did I get when I managed to crawl up the side of the lifepod in an emotional state resembling a 10-car wreck. As if nearly being torn limb from limb wasn't enough fun, Kate had ventured too close to a "water fountain" that had turned out to be a _volcanic vent_. Mercifully she'd only been at the topmost part of the superheated blast. Not so mercifully, the EPSI suit had not been able to insulate her...posterior.  
  
"In your defense I wouldn't have known any better either," was my bleak attempt at consoling Kate as she stood at the ladder with her suit stripped down to her calves. "Let's just be thankful your were facing _away_ from the vent before it imitated Old Faithful." She huffed and sniffed with hurricane force, gripping the rungs until I swore it started creaking. I couldn't even bring myself to smile at the sheer irony of the situation. While I hadn't seen a live human woman 'up-close and personal' for over a decade, I didn't WANT to be getting an eyefull of fiery red skin damaged by the brutal heat. I had sympathy pains just looking at the poor thing. At least my near-miss hadn't actually left me _physically _harmed.  
  
At bare minimum (pun not intended) Kate was in immediate need of oral pain relief tablets, antibiotics, a quarter-inch coating of burn gel, the softest bed in existance and a week's worth of rest while being checked on by qualified medical personnel. I had a lifepod with no flat surface big enough to lay down on, a wall doctor that fabricated "band-aid" kits and no formal medical training. To express our situation in the politest terms would probably set a Bible on fire.  
  
Finally I could do no more than look around one side of my 'patient' and wearily ask if she had at least brought back _something._ A tear fell to the titanium floor with the softest _pip_ as she nodded tightly and pointed toward some twisted piece of junk lying on one of the seats. "It. Was. In...a little box." Kate huffed through her teeth.  
  
"About the size of my head?" She nodded tightly. A standard shipping-and-storage crate. The Aurora must have had hundreds of them stored all over the ship. Finding pieces of the tools we needed was possible enough. Finding one in usable condition...not so possible. I wearily rose to my feet to take a closer look at the pitiful object. The thing was _very_ vaguely gun-like, but that description could fit a number of tools.  
  
Regardless, if the fabricator couldn't immediately make another on the spot fabricator would at least be able to tell what it had used to be, But when the familiar menu appeared there was only one option listed for the active item: "Recycle".  
  
A moment of dead silence. Then my voice rose to a roar. "The hell do you MEAN you can't scan it?"

We're _screwed_.  
  
I can't believe I never tested this. I'm a damn computer nerd, I test everything and trust _nothing_. But at the same time...why would I have ever needed to? All my life I've been surrounded by a surplus of tools. More than I could ever possibly use. It just never occurred to me that I might possibly not have a working copy on hand. The very idea, until today, was as foreign as not having enough _food_. As I sat there raging I realized it **had **to occur to Alterra. There's simply no way they could have accidentally not put the ability to take a damaged tool or three and be able to "Frankenstein" a copy, like assembling the parts from three different puzzles missing different pieces to make a whole one. It had to be their obsession with 3D copy protection. Not even in a _life or death survival scenario_ could they be bothered.  
  
Now for something as simple as making a flashlight I need to go find the ingredients like a star on some demented celebrity cooking show. Except no celebrity had to worry about 10-foot dentists' nightmares or a leaking reactor. Or dealing with unattended first-degree burns.  
  
Speaking of burns, Kate is sleeping fitfully on the lifepod's floor on a "bed" of white fabric mesh synthesized from a copious amount of alien seaweed. A stray, wrinkled 4-pack of low-dose pain pills in one of her suit's pockets it at least helping her get some rest but the next week is going to royally suck. Pain aside, God help us if she gets an infection. I wish I could do more for her, but I'm so tired after hauling a hunk of freaking _weeds _through this freaking _ocean_ I think I'm actually tired enough to fall asleep in my chair.

Morning.  
  
My first morning on this murderous landless blue **hell**.  
  
I don't even have the luxury of addressing all the things I'm missing. My friends, my own bed, the 4D movie system that totally fell off a freighter to end up in our break room. **_Coffee._** I would perform a blood ritual to the devil for a crate of coffee. What I get instead is a couple of tasteless bottled waters and fresh fish - after I _catch _it. Another one of the stalk-eyed, humpbacked things my P.A.I.* dubbed a "Garryfish" for what the hell ever reason. It calls the taste "floral" but for my money it's reasonably close to Tilapia. Which would be a brilliant little taste from home if I had any lemon butter or tartar sauce. Or for that matter _a damn fork to eat it with._ I don't mind eating wild-caught food nearly as much as I find eating like a caveman to be...demeaning.  
  
In between staving off a mental meltdown and cursing my fate I've gone for an early morning scouting expedition towards the Aurora. As barking mad as it seems to intentionally head toward a giant degrading reactor, water is a good enough "shield" against radiation that I'll be able to get reasonably close before my PDA alerts me to my goose cooking. Key thing to remember is staying UNDER the water as much as possible, surfacing only long enough to top up my air supply. Instead of going straight through Sawfish territory I tried a circular end-around that's given me a lovely view of her stern. The ship, that is, not Kate. And chalk up **another **major distraction to survival planning, searching for salvage...like that giant hunk of hull that I spy with my little eye.  
  
At first I think I'm seeing things. An entire chunk of the ship has come to rest on the seafloor. A section of the outer hull plating, some support beams, and one of the outermost rooms ripped out wholesale from the violently uncontrolled deorbit. A jackpot - or a boobytrap full of unstable weight, razor edges, live power cables and leaking toxic materials. A hundred excruciating deaths flash through my mind. There will be no help for me if I make a mistake, and then none for Kate. A few of the outermost edges are still faintly glowing from heat, but no matter how many times I circle the wreckage I see no sparks, no trails of evil-looking fluid.  
  
The only way in is a single door that mercifully is pointing up towards the surface. I reach out as far as I can to grab the orange override handle...and it doesn't budge. As hard as I jerk I might as well try pulling on a mountain. There I am, flailing with one hand pointlessly yanking on the handle until I have to go up for air. _Leverage. _On the second try I brace one leg against the doorframe. Suddenly I can actually exert some force on the handle until something gives way with a faint hissing. As the (formerly) airtight door falls downward into the interior, I spot the glow of another PDA illuminating the room.  
  
Unfortunately that's about all there is. A small stack of shipping crates with the shattered pieces of some miniature beacons are all that remain. There are two doors that I could potentially cut open. But without tools, their contents are as off-limits as the Alterra Currency Reserve. There's nothing to do but keep looking.

Dammit.

Ahead the seafloor drops much farther down, easily to 80 meters or more. In an emergency that's more than a meter per second of air I have and I do _not_ like those odds. I need to find another wreck in a shallow area. Fast. Randomly heading off in another direction is my instintual urge but logically a poor choice. Perhaps the Aurora's hull itself can provide a clue. All but one of the four main thrusters are sticking up above the waterline, meaning she came to rest on a fairly shallow ledge or plateau. There's a higher likelihood of running into medical supplies scattered from her the closer I go the the hull. Naturally I'll turn back the INSTANT my EPSI's radiation monitor goes off.  
  
I can't help but feel more like a puny little bug the closer I swim to the titanic engines of the once-mighty starship. A little bug looking at the corpse of the giant that it had once sheltered it from harm. In return for a little maintenance and fuel she protected me with her titanium skin from the airless freezing void of space. Starvation, dehydration, disease or even boredom were kept at bay with the countless supplies she carried. After awhile I forgot what I was even being protected _from_ \- what a mark of true luxury.  
  
Then it strikes me: I'm a symbiote. That's what I am...what I was. One of many. A part of several organisms living in mutual benefit, one doing what the other cannot. A relationship where both benefit from the other's actions. Now I'm looking from the outside at the decaying shell of the giant while I scrabble for bits falling from its body to survive one more day, almost helpless against the elements and countless mortal dangers. Even the _body _of the giant may still kill me if her 'heart' continues to spew streams of invisible poisons.  
  
A faint tremor begins building through the water that transcends even the mighty ocean currents; an angry rumble that shakes my very being as my hair stands on end. At first I think it must be an earthquake - but at sea? Perhaps a tremendous underwater geyser? Then I realize that the giant is in her final groans of death. Her heart is trembling with a force that shakes the waves. Soon it will burst in an orgy of destruction. Perhaps it is about to burst even now!  
  
The little bug who once rode aboard the giant scrambles to dive back below the waves. Where there is no safety at all, and only the flimsiest hope of finding what it so desperately needs.

I was just passing a field of the skyscraper-tall seaweed when I first saw it in the distance. A sinuous shape, barely visible through the murky tan waters. Immediately I wanted to disbelieve my own eyes as the monstrosity vanished out of sight. But when my PDA warned "large underwater motion detected" I marked up one more entry on the list of "things trying to kill me". Sight unseen, something that large was dangerous even if it didn't see me as a snack. And if it did - there was nothing solid enough to hide behind. My only hope short of not being noticed was to either hug the bottom or go to even shallower waters. So I headed even closer toward the Aurora's stern, poking my head out of the water to get my bearings.  
  
Big mistake. By now I was almost close enough to draw a straight line between the bottom two thruster ports. The combination of vertigo and primal size-difference fear kicked in bad enough my heartbeat began feeling like a drum set. Another soul-shaking tremor rippled through the waters. Floating there like a lanky fishing bobber, I thought about two things that are almost universal to attract predators: the corpse of a large dying animal and something disturbing their territory. To their dim minds the Aurora must have been _both_. Which made ME not only a helpless intruder but one with a particularly bad sense of timing.  
  
I made up my mind to take one last look for supplies before beelining straight aft from the wreck just in time to hear a chunk of hull plunge into the sea to my left. A quick guess put the impact geyser at least three stories high while I shot even faster across the surface. Note to self: C sharp for falling objects or you will B flat. And how wonderful, I'm involuntarily making bad jokes to distract myself from the situation at hand. Maybe next I might start hallucinating for fun and profit.  
  
So distracted was I by the combination of multiple threats to my life and my degenerating mental state that I almost missed what I'd been looking so hard for. A tiny glimmer of bright cyan amidst the endless drabness. Foolishly I dove toward it with the single-mindedness of a guided rocket. I remember that the crate was half-buried in loose sand, and my elation at the airtight packaging on the first-aid kit being undamaged. But not the moment when i first spotted that shadow...that insidious _blotting out _of the light. But I **must **have done all those things, because I distinctly remember whirling my head back and forth so bad I hurt my neck, then diving in a panic to wedge under the edge of a large chunk of hull plating.  
  
The first thing that came to mind was: _Now I'm **really **in treble._ And then the logical half of my brain got in a shouting match with my creative half while my body attempted to occupy less space than physically possible and -  
  
**_HAAAAAUUUUUWWWHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHUUUUUUUUNNNNNNNGGGGGHHHHHHHHH_**

  
(*personal AI)


	7. Interlude - Alterra internal email

  
  
~Alterra Imail~  
CLEARANCE: INTERNAL ONLY  
  
To: All_Dept  
From: 1st Class Engineer Zarkowsky  
Regarding: Manual overrides  
  
Dear everyone -  
  
I regret to inform you that I will be resigning my position effective yesterday due to a cost-cutting decision that is going to cost people lives at some point. I'll let you know that the rumors regarding using the lowest bidder for the waste recycling system are untrue. Thankfully. So is the one about the atmospheric filtering system not having any redundancy. This time management has decided to cut costs on...doors.  
  
Yes, this is important. When you get a chance walk down a corridor and count how many doors you go through that have manual overrides. That's the big orange level you yank to get through when the magnetic locks die for the millionth time or when the power goes out. Like when something blows up or a circuit breaker trips.  
  
It seems that Big Brass has decided that only some doors get that lever. The rest of them STAY locked if the power goes out. So in a life threatening emergency that we _totally never have_ they will do what we engineers call "fail deadly". You will be stuck banging on that door, trying to cut through it, or running around in terror trying to find another exit - if there is one.  
  
Despite me doing everything short of begging on my knees the decision will go on the final design blueprints for this ship as well as any other ones in the same class. Alterra's shiny new fleet is going to be a deathtrap waiting to happen.  
  
Hopefully by the time you see this message over someone's shoulder or on "you-know-where" I'll have made it to one of the Rim Systems on a private shuttle, seeing as how_ things just seem to happen_ to people who resign without "approval". I tried, people. I really did. If you were in Group D you know how many reports I filed. But there's too much security to try blowing the reactor, too many layers of bureaucracy to even hope for an Administrative Review. This ship will be built with or without me. The most I can do is sound the alarm and get my own hide out before it's nailed to the wall. May God and the families of the survivors forgive me when the inevitable happens.  
  
Extremely sincerely,  
  
"Zeke"  
  
~End message~


	8. Aftershock

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Which is easier to break - a mind, or a starship?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining."
> 
> ― John F. Kennedy

Somehow I'm not crying or shaking. At least not much. Just swimming very wobbly. The true reaction will come later. Now is for getting the hell out of Dodge with my prizes: a power cell and a battery, a med-kit, and two bottles of distilled water. It took far too long to spot the locker I'd been towing behind me, dropped in the scramble to escape.  
  
This entire areas is off-limits for me. Which is going to suck royally because I spotted almost a half dozen pieces that look like fragments from a Cyclops-class submersible. But going after them would be suicide. And as if the treasure guarded by a dragon weren't enough another _certain _urge has made itself quite known. So I stop by the outermost vine to cut off enough leaves to fabricate into fabric. Hopefully, it will do for toilet paper.  
  
The lifepod is waiting. Kate is waiting. My mental meltdown is waiting.  
  
I make the mistake of wondering out loud "What ELSE could possibly go wrong?"  
  
"Warning. Local radiation readings suggest the Aurora's drive core has reached critical state. Quantum detonation will occur within 2 hours. Increased distance will provide increased safety."  
  
...why me?

\-----

I ran out of time.  
  
The two hour estimate ended at least ten minutes ago while I was groping around in the dark by the light of glowing plants, smashing open any lump of rock that might have a faint trace of the silver ore I needed to build a repair tool. My brain is fogged and my legs are on **fire**. I can barely even swim forward to the lifepod that's too far away.  
  
A part of me screams that this just isn't _fair_.  
  
_Emergency: A quantum detonation has occurred in the Aurora's drive core._  
  
That _damnable voice_ in my headphones starts a countdown that I desperately try to ignore. A few more yards closer, too damn many yards farther away. Ten seconds. I kick and scream between breaths at this wretched planet. Five seconds. The PDA's voice distorts as I pitifully flail harder. A horrible rumble begins to build to my left. The giant is about to bellow one final time and I'm so much too close to it...  
  
I have enough time to scramble through the bottom hatch and cling to the ladder hugging a half naked woman before an invisible hand **shoves **the lifepod sideways. Kate wails discordantly as we bounce like a cork. My mouth wants to burst with a scream but it would only echo all the louder. As the world pitches violently the lifepod's frame groans from the force, lifting up for a half second before slamming back down against the water. Amidst it all that haunting monotone of the PDA's voice says something about a suit. We don't need a suit. We need a miracle...  
  
Somehow the crippled lifepod doesn't capsize in the pitching waves from the aftershock. Slowly - VERY slowly - the gut-shaking lurching settles down to a mere sickening wobble, enough for me to release my death grip around the ladder. Kate still clings to it with the strength borne of fear. "The ship blew up," is the only thing I can stupidly say as I manage to notice that her...feminine traits...are protruding through the rungs at me. Fortunately I'm not the only one running on too little rest so if Kate notices my braindead gawping she doesn't mention it. "I guess we didn't blow up? So...now what? Can we look for an island or something?"  
  
"I **wish**. Now we see if I managed to scrounge enough crap to build a repair tool. Or else..." I manage to shut my mouth before I say "we're screwed, and not the fun way."  
  
Sometimes being a guy is just so _freaking inconvenient_.

* * *

  
Slowly the jumble of resources strewn in the lifepod's locker begins to take shape into proper materials. A jagged shard of hull plating into titanium 'balls', raw copper into formed wire. An entire computer processor fabricated from scratch - the first ever made on this planet. Useless fragments and a large egg - mistaken for a mineral node - go tumbling out the bottom hatch. Even though my fingers can barely close enough to pick things up, I'm not too exhausted to realize how utterly hopeless our situation would be without technology. How _perilously_ close we both are from going right back to the Stone Age without even any stone.  
  
At last all the circles in the fabricator's interface are green. All that work finally paying off. Hours of swimming alone and afraid to get something I could have afforded with an hour's labor back home. The repair tool slowly forms before my eyes like a wish granted by a genie. If I had the energy I'd cheer. As it is, I don't trust myself to do more than slot that precious lone battery into our priceless new tool and make sure it turns on before I slump into the same seat that carried me down from the sky.  
  
"G'night. Don't break it willya honey...itz expensive."

Personal log, T+2  
  
"Good news, bad news" seems to be the way things go around here for the near future. I woke up to a Lifepod with running lights, the air filters whirring quietly, and a couple fresh fish for breakfast. This is definitely an improvement. The bad news is that building a single tool consumed every scrap of non-common materials we have. There are subtle differences between the rocky outcrops I can somewhat tell which ones are more likely to have silver or gold. In good light. Usually. And I've used what few there were nearby.  
  
Priority one is a standard scanner. Not only is the wall fabricator "blind" the internal database is pathetically bare-bones now that I've had a moment to look through the list. Even low-end commercial 'fabs have long been able to "jigsaw" furniture from smaller parts. It's practically a rite of passage anymore to print and assemble your own bed. So at best, the wall-fab's internal memory is grossly inadequate. More likely there was just no simulating anyone in a survival scenario lasting longer than a couple standard days.  
  
I'm not sure if that's just Alterra's usual level of planning or an unspoken expectation that nobody would live this long without outside assistance.

* * *

  
About 200 meters out, I've made an amazing discovery: exploring without such advanced tools as _a map and compass_ is a bit _tricky_.  
  
What's really frustrating is I had my OWN navigation plugin. **Back on the Aurora.** And assuming it hasn't been blown or crushed to powder I'm sure it's still quite snug in the fingerprint-and-retina locked titanium safe anyone keeps their Really Neat Stuff in. Now I have a grand total of **one **reference point: the Lifepod itself, automatically locked as a waypoint on my EPSI suit's primitive HUD.  
  
But that's not the worst part. After rebooting in "emergency mode" my PDA's interface has locked itself to a handful of useful tabs. Not among them are a scratchpad to write notes, an alarm clock, access to a medical encyclopedia, checklists for novice survivalees or a dozen other things that might be very useful for someone stranded lightyears away from help. What really is driving me mad is that I don't even have a gel-pen and something to scribble on if I did. Physical writing material is considered "quaint" and wayfinding tools are built into countless everyday gadgets that I don't have. But even an illiterate caveman with berry juice and an animal skin could make a damn map, then hang a lodestone from a string and have a compass. _That_ is how far down the technological tree I've fallen.  
  
Unless I can somehow hack one of our PDAs back to regular operations, the two of us will have to commit everything important to memory. This is hardly ideal in the **best **of circumstances. And lacking any better way of orienting myself I've resorted to swimming in a mostly-straight line from the Lifepod until I find something interesting. If I listen closely, I swear I can hear the ghosts of explorers past laughing at me.  
  
After a few failed attempts I start to feel almost...childish...in my efforts. As I imagine trying to communicate my daily excursions with one of my literate, educated peers the conversation has an almost comedicly ignorant tone to it.  
  
"Where did you go today?  
-"Oh, I went over _that _way."  
"How far did you go?"  
-"I don't know, but it took me a long time to get there and back. But I found some really neat stuff!"  
"What stuff?"  
-"Umm...some stuff I've never seen before...and some really weird plants."  
"Could you show me where it is?"  
-"Umm..._maybe?_"  
  
I mentally decide to put a stop to my internal dialog before I feel even more helpless than I already do. Being cut off from civilized society is bad enough. Realizing you can't communicate nonverbally is downright _humiliating_.  
  


Today has been rather unproductive. I've spent most of it sitting on the back of a glowing, rock-monster with tentacles, listening to it 'singing' to the others in the herd.  
  
I certainly took a risk clambering on the bare back of something I'd only seen for the first time a few seconds ago. But the nastiest thing about being so far out in the open water is fatigue sneaks up on you when you least expect it. Then when you realize that you're about a minute from cramping up into a little ball you also notice that there is nothing above the waterline to hang on to. The fear of drowning is bad enough - now imagine drowning while you helplessly float to the bottom. And clinging to an air bladder won't save you from your muscles turning to jelly when the constant waves thrash you to exhaustion.  
  
My PDA classes these rock-like giants as "Leviathan class herbivores", though I'm unsure where on the scale of plant life to animal life these creatures actually fall. In any case they don't have a visible mouth and seem to not care if I climb on for a ride. Katy absolutely refused to come near even the smaller ones; babbling about 'giant anime creatures'. Whatever _those_ are. Perhaps the tentacles that could wrap around several Lifepods at once have something to do with her outburst?  
  
Sadly these gentle giants seem content to meander aimlessly instead of truly _migrating_ so I won't be able to use them as easy transport. Still they'll be a welcome 'rest stop'. The larger ones are so encrusted with minerals that I can actually break off chunks without even bothering them. If I can get my mitts on a scanner I'll be more than happy to science the heck out of all the plants growing on top like a portable terrarium. At the very least this one is serving quite well as a tour bus, keeping my exhausted body above the surface while I stare at the smoldering remains of the ship turned into a giant BBQ. Heck - I wonder if this creature could be turned into a self-propelled _house_. An ambitious idea to be sure, but it would beat being stuck in that Lifepod until goodness-knows-when. Perhaps a short "tube" with a big viewport on the front. Or maybe a single room made of reinforced glass?  
  
But to replace our current housing would mean fabricating a list of at least dozen different things, half of which we are already in desperate need of. Such are the perils of ambition.  
  
An ominous warbling sound through my headphones jolts me out of my philosophical debate. Ignorant of radiation, the pod of creatures has decided to turn and head toward the Aurora's wreckage. I can only feel a pang of sorrow for them as I dive off the side and start swimming away from a danger they can neither sense nor comprehend. Hopefully they won't stick around the wreck long enough for me to have to worry about secondary contamination, because our situation is **really **going to get interesting if we have irradiated monster-islands floating about.  
  
Chalk up one _more_ planet where mankind has harmed the native wildlife through our oafish blundering.

\-----

  
Not half a week into our imprisonment on this overgrown water balloon and we're already facing shortages of resources courtesy of the Aurora's final gasp of power. "No problem," I thought at first, "I've got a radiation suit!"  
  
There's one _small _problem with the radiation suit the PDA unlocked. It's an old model using passive material shielding instead of active energy fields. In layman's terms, it keeps you from being broiled alive by layers of lead plates. Sensible enough as lead is easier to find in most survival situations than a man-portable shield generators. But lead is _heavy_. A leaded **suit **will badly impair your movements on land - or send you straight to the ocean floor if you happen to step out of a lifepod. Which is _exactly _what happened to me.  
  
Currently my shiny new boots are sitting about 30 meters below me while I contemplate my lack of foresight and have a spirited debate with my cabinmate.  
  
"Yes, I do SO - _kaff kaff _\- need those boots! Now - let - go - _**KOFF**_ \- of me!!"  
  
"No you DON'T you crazy lab rat! You need to, like, not **drown** and leave me here in this horrible scary place with monsters and no people and no toilets! I'm a fitness coordinator for stars' sake not Craig McGill! You have a plan and I don't have the first idea...."  
  
How I love such _intellectually stimulating_ dialog. Especially when it's being shouted in my ear at **molto fortissimo** \- really helps with clear thinking. Like thinking about what the seven levels of hell to do when I'm short of glowing pods for silicone due to the field of deadly radiation emanating from the Aurora's crumbling shell. This is becoming a problem as few of the vines bear the 'fruit' that the fabricator can process into silicone rubber. I already had to turn back from several within sight when my alarm tripped. This also puts enough titanium and spare parts to build an undersea base hopelessly out of reach. Ditto for anything that survived on the Aurora itself. And since I can't swim while wearing a (supposedly) radiation-proof suit, I can't do a thing to either seal the leaking radiation nor save anything in the "no-go zone".  
  
That isn't even the worst of our worries, either. The local environment already got its first taste of insidious, invisible poison when the reactor explosion blew contaminated hull plates and machinery all over yonder. Wildlife and ocean currents will further spread them. As secondary irradiation spreads through the food chain any edible plants or animals that don't die off will become worse than useless to us. Eventually the ocean floor _itself _will become deadly.  
  
I'd _love _to follow Kate's spirited advice to "just stay away". But _this _war will inevitably arrive at our doorstep. If we (more like _I_) can't patch enough holes to stop further leaks, the only ghost of a prayer of a chance we have is to build a radiation-proof home or build a submarine and make like a Gypsy at sea -  
  
"...and are you even LISTENING TO ME?!"  
  
Oops. A sudden _crescendo_ brings me back to the present. Also to the face of a rather angry female.  
  
"LOOK at that screen, General Lee Oblivious!"  
  
I s-l-o-w-l-y aim my eyeballs at the main display screen. It's the usual wall of green text - except for one line in red tjat shows our current power reserves. "Oops," is all that manages to fall out of my mouth.  
  
"EGG-zactly. We have, like, no electricity. I've been waiting for you to be done making that stupid suit that almost drowned you because I'm thirsty so I can go grab a couple fish, hit them on the floor to make them quit squirming and get a teeny tiny little drink. Do you know how GROSS it is to drink water made from an ugly fish?! Do you know how GROSS a girl feels when she can't take a shower for **days**? And now I have to wait like, _forever_ for this stupid little lifepod-boat-thing to charge its batteries."  
  
_Batteries._ An alarm bell starts going off in my head. A craft this small is far too small to have a fusion reactor, so how **are** we getting power? A pint-size Stirling engine? Fuel cell? Surely not an RTG?* Then I see it right on the screen: "Solar cells." The words make my heart collapse into a black hole as I struggle to my feet.  
  
"Oh good, now you _notice_ \- "  
  
"How has the weather been?"  
  
Kate sputter, balls up her fists. "WHAT THE HELL DOES THAT MATTER? I can't get a decent drink and you're asking 'hows the weather'?"  
  
I feel one hand unconsciously stray to the knife, as level as my voice is. "While you've been topside...have you seen thick gray clouds on the horizon? You can rip me a new one later Kate. In fact you can rip me a new one at both ends. But for right now get whatever water you can while I take a good hard look at the clouds. If they're starting to even look like there MIGHT be a storm, don't make anything, because we're about to go without more power and YES I know it's my fault -"  
  
"Wait, what? What do you - "  
  
"The batteries charge from solar cells, Kate. Solar cells don't **work** at night."  
  
If were starring on a live-action broadcast, some overpaid and overdressed people in a studio would comment on how well Kate's face became the a perfect portrait of inarticulate rage.  
  
(*[one of these](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_generator))

Hours later, though, I've **never** been happier to be wrong in all my life. The lefthand number on the energy reserve display is counting up, and the blackness of an alien night looms above us. In hindsight I can't believe I assumed that the label on something was correct on a machine, sight-unseen. My old electrical class teacher would have blistered my eardrums for such an amateur mistake. "Solar cells" my grandma's hoverchair - I can stick my head out right now and see there is absolutely no such thing.  
  
Kate hasn't apologized but we are at least tersely discussing how to better share our mutual energy supply in the future. This wouldn't be half as difficult if I could do as little as stick a note up on the wall. Or perhaps send her a reminder on her PDA, which I COULD do if it weren't locked in this semi-useless "emergency" mode. For now I'll be happy that my mismanagement of resources just means I have to wait my turn to get a drink. I don't even mind that Kate's guzzled every drop of drinkable water we have seeing as how her mood improves with every bottle. **Ugh**. And now I just reminded myself how much I want an ice-cold Oculemonade. I'd pay a hundred credits for just one single can of that fizzy lemony elixir. _Two_ hundred if it's delivered frosty cold...  
  
This is going to be another long night.  
  
*****  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> According to a physically disabled reader, "the person who survived in your story feels how I feel. I have bad muscle days and can not write or type on a key board. Ideas get stuck in my head and no body can read minds. Sucks doesnt it?? (sic) "
> 
> Oof.


	9. Author's notes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some notes about the writing process so far. A fan offers an explanation regarding power sources.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Co-creation credit to 0X6A7232 and scifiwriterguy.

**AN: Living space**

One recent attempt to get into character involved taping off a Lifepod sized section of the living room and confining myself to it for a couple hours with a box of granola bars, some plain (cooked) catfish nuggets and a few bottles of water. The seat was replaced by a hard wooden chair from the dining room. Finally for sound atmosphere I started a Creative mode game of Subnautica and left my player-character inside the (in-game) Lifepod while playing a 1-hour recording of ocean surf at decently high volume.

My wife invented some new terms to question my sanity - but I _did_ find out some things useful to writing a Subnautica fanstory. "Cabin fever" doesn't even begin to describe the feeling that starts creeping up on a person confined to what is basically a jail cell. In order to rest lying down I had to curve my midsection around the marking for the ladder and a person accustomed to sleeping straight does NOT feel comfortable in a vaguely C-shaped position. Add the continual pitching of the waves and a "landlubber" survivor would dread going to bed at night. Forget a restful sleep. You'd be trying not to barf until you basically passed out from exhaustion.

Then there's mealtime. Catfish nuggets are yummy. Lukewarm catfish with the skin still on, no seasoning and no silverware to eat it with? Not quite so pleasant. It makes you feel like you've either regressed to a toddler in terms of eating habits or brings back unpleasant memories of personal poverty. And unlike the survivors I have the luxury of my food not staring back at me.

This attempt at swimming a mile in my character's shoes, improvised and amateur as it was, proved to be quite thought provoking.

**AN: Keeping afloat**

One of the many curiosities of Subnautica is the lack of personal flotation devices. It's especially odd because fabricating a life jacket should be a cinch between having access to rubber, fabric, and the aforementioned device. The Air Bladder makes for a handy emergency ascension device as intended - but what about someone trying to actually stay afloat with one?

I decided to test this theory myself by hanging on to a small toy float procured from Wal-Mart by one arm. After about twenty-five minutes, my arm was utterly reduced to jelly on a stick. And this was in flat-calm water with the shore ten seconds away. If I were being batted about by ocean waves I'd be tired out far sooner and risk having it swatted out of my grip by the sea at any point. If that was the only thing keeping my head above the surface, I'd be screwed.

Given that the Ryley Robinson can tread water for a fair length of time this also raises the question of how buoyant the "default" clothing is. Even if the EPSI is capable of floating a typical human (unlikely) a swimmer will get a mouth/nosefull of salt water in all but the calmest of waters if you try floating flat on your back.

Not to mention you'll be drifting off to goodness-knows-where in the meantime.

**AN: I got the power?**

The lifepod's power source is another point of divergence from canon, but one I feel needed to be made. It beggars belief that Lifepod 5 is solar-powered when there obviously is NOT a solar panel anywhere to be seen on the exterior. There's also the fact that the charging rate doesn't slow down at night like an actual solar panel.

So what does power the Lifepod? I'll leave that unanswered in canon, but a loyal fan has put forth the jolly good explanation shown below. Let's go with "some solar, some from...something else".

AN: Buy a fellow a drink?

One pressing question for anyone stranded on a lifeboat at sea is "how much drinking water do I have?" Lifepod 5 has an energy reserve of 75 'units'. For convenience I'll call them EU's. Fabricating anything with them takes 5 units, which raises some questions about efficiency, but we'll let that slide for a moment. So let's strand ourselves alongside any other survivors in Lifepod 5 for a moment and see how much water we can get assuming we have enough raw materials at hand to keep going until the battery goes from fully charged to dead. You'll be able to press the button 15 times in a row.

  * Filtered Water - 6 oz each : 90 oz total
  * Disinfected Water - 12 oz each: 180 oz total (1 and 1/2 gallons)
  * Large Filtered Water - 15 oz each: 225 oz (1.75 gallons)

Now to put the numbers in some perspective.

Ready.gov recommends one gallon of water per person per day in case things really hit the fan. So just to hit that amount for a single person is going to take a lot of Bleach to fabricate a lot of Disinfected Water, or near-constant production of Filtered Water.

**AN: "Going down"  
**  
The things I do for my writing!  
  
In the interests of <strike>complete madness</strike> authenticity, I've attempted to go swimming after putting on a lead suit to see how hard it would actually be. Not having a radiation-proof suit at hand, I crafted something to simulate the weight: an old lifejacket with 20 pounds of fishing weights stuffed where part of the foam used to be. Result: swimming turns into sinking if one is not used to the additional burden. On my first attempt I was very glad that I hadn't followed my first instinct of jumping in on the diving board. That extra weight wore out my swimming stamina faster than my cell phone eats battery power.  
  
As for doing this in open water, imagine putting [Chicago galoshes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cement_shoes) on yourself and then jumping over the side of a deep sea fishing boat. First floor, doing **down**.  
  
Speaking of going down...a comparison between depth in an ocean environment and height in an aboveground environment. Putting on a heavy suit without anything to counteract the burden or allow yourself to take a break is dangerous enough. Consider that you might not be able to release it quickly - ever tried undoing the snaps on a lifejacket while trying not to inhale water? Imagine trying to get rid of an entire suit that's giving you an express ticket to Davy Jones' locker. And while you're fumbling with your lead boots you're also falling from _the underwater equivalent of a ten story building_. When you encounter the ocean floor (or whatever is underneath), you're going to get a intense but brief education on Newton's laws of motion. You may not go SPLAT like an egg...but your ribcage will be smushed like so many toothpicks.  
  
"But wait," you say, "I have this nifty balloon that can hold me and my lead vest up!" Okay, have fun floating around with your lead vest and your balloon. Don't let it slip out of your hand or get popped on something sharp! Otherwise the thing keeping you from being parboiled by ionizing radiation will _also _be the thing keeping you from swimming to the surface.  
  
Forget ghosts or Slenderman. True horror is standing on the bottom of the ocean floor looking up at the surface, wearing a suit you can't remove keeping you from swimming to that beautiful bounty of air, and about 60 seconds to contemplate your imminent death.

**On the issue of solar cells vs. other power sources:**

[@scifiwriterguy](https://forums.unknownworlds.com/profile/scifiwriterguy) had an explanation as to what this could be IIRC. Let me look through his posts and find it...  
  
EDIT: [here](https://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/comment/2384488#Comment_2384488):

Spoiler

> [scifiwriterguy](https://forums.unknownworlds.com/profile/scifiwriterguy) wrote: [»](https://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/comment/2384488#Comment_2384488)
>
>> [0x6A7232](https://forums.unknownworlds.com/profile/0x6A7232) wrote: [»](https://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/comment/2384485#Comment_2384485)
>> 
>> Better be a fuel cell or something then? Charging some sort of capacitor or regular battery power cell?
> 
>   
Capacitors tied to a nuclear battery. There are several different designs that would work - thermocouple/thermophotovoltaic, thermionic, alpha/betavoltaic, a handful of others - but a constant-production low-capacity generator tied to a supercapacitor bank would be the most feasible answer; it'd produce energy constantly, independent of environmental conditions, and be a reliable power source for a very long time.
> 
> Unless you crack it open, and then your name better be Bruce Banner or life is going to suck in short order. Luckily, it won't bother you for long.
>
>> [Maalteromm](https://forums.unknownworlds.com/profile/Maalteromm) wrote: [»](https://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/comment/2384486#Comment_2384486)
>> 
>> Just playing devil's advocate here...  
Assuming the entirety of the pod surface doubles as solar cells, and that it has better efficiency than current cells. If we approximate the lifepod to a sphere with a radius of 2m, its surface area will be ~50m and a large portion of it will be exposed to the sun.  
High tech equipment should also be more energy efficient.  
I say it's fictionally viable.
>> 
>> Imho just change it to work as a regular in-game solar cell and it's all cool.
> 
>   
Fair enough. 
> 
> If we assume the pod is a rough sphere 2m in diameter, surface area works out to 50.27 m2. About, say, a quarter of that is flotation skirt and underwater, so that's functionally useless, leaving us with roughly 37.7 m2. You're never going to get light exposure on all sides of the pod because the star is a single-point source, so there will be, at most, half of the pod in direct sunlight, or 18.8 m2, which is a little short. Water is highly reflective, though, so let's assume the rest of the pod gets...say, 30% nominal exposure, giving us an effective secondary area of 5.655 m2, for a grand productive total of...24.455 m2, more than the 19 m2 dirt minimum I calculated originally. Taking away the big, gaudy, light-up 5 and other odd bits will shave off maybe two square meters or thereabouts, so, in terms of area, it looks like we're good.
> 
> Now, another hitch is the pod itself: the thing's white. Classically, solar panels are dark - blue or black.
> 
> Spoiler
> 
> However, in 2013, a paper was published outlining a method to potentially produce colored solar panels, and a year later, CSEM actually managed to pull it off. (It's a pretty cool process, involving a sandwich of multiple super-thin layers of doped silicon to convert photons into electrons and then harvest them. The nifty bit is that you can make them white, so that's another problem off the checklist.
> 
> Lookin' good! Plus, solar cells are really fragile, so we...um...uh-oh.
> 
> A lifeboat is going to take some knocks, and that's just lifeboats on oceans here on Earth. A lifepod on a spaceship? You're going to be using them in all kinds of environments. High heat to near absolute zero. Vacuum to crushing pressure. Toxic and corrosive environments. Hard rads. You're going to be dropping them on rock, bouncing them off asteroids or ring systems, peppering them with shrapnel. Heck, just take a look at what happened to our pod in the span of about twenty seconds: it was launched out of a burning ship, smashed into an ocean at high speed, and - tiny detail - was _way_ too close for safety to an exploding freaking starship. And yet, that pod comes through looking like a new penny. The clear implication is that those pods can take some abuse without losing capability. (NOTE: Guarantee does not apply to alien quarantine squids sawing pods open. Any alien interaction voids warranty.) One problem the colorized solar panels have is durability: they cannot handle punishment. After everything Old Number 5 has been through, if it were coated with solar cells, it should look shaggier than a shedding buffalo as huge chunks of the cells have been ripped off.
> 
> But, hey, let's just handwave that and say "they figured out the durability problem." They can't make a battery that lasts longer than a sneeze, but they can make a pocketknife that can poke a hole in a submarine, so clearly Alterra quality control is a mixed bag. Let's assume they somehow fixed the solar cell durability problem.
> 
> Sooooo...yeah! It's technically theoretically plausible. Change it to work as a regular in-game solar system, let it serve as an intro to the solar power mechanic as [@0x6A7232](https://forums.unknownworlds.com/profile/0x6A7232) suggested, and it's all cool. 

  
EDIT2: As for your other question, if one person is not doing quite as much strenuous exercise, they can drink less. However, with that burn? Yeah, they'll need **_more_** at least until they heal up. Remember, though, squeezing Bladderfish takes less (makes less too, but IDK what's actually the most efficient) and you do get SOME water from food (same as in RL).


	10. Trial and Error

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes the only way to find out what works is to find out what doesn't. Just take care that your failures aren't permanent.

Another day, another dollar.  
  
Oh wait. It's night time. Oh wait again - I'm not being paid any more. And I don't know what day it is, so I can't complain on payday. Because there's no calendar, and no clock, and not one clue how long a "day" actually is on this oversized fishbowl full of monsters.  
  
I don't need an expert to tell that "days" on Planet 4546B don't match up to Sol-standard days. At least I can explain the confusion from waking up in one afternoon and being told by one's cabinmate that it really is the afternoon - of _tomorrow_, which is now **today**. Not that it makes me actually feel better. Planet lag, like jet lag before it, means you're dead tired when it's bright sunlight outside and your body suddenly decides it needs to vent your intestines with explosive force. It literally _stinks_. And metaphorically too, thanks to a little device which has decided to become a digital version of my mother!  
  
_"Fluid intake recommended"_, intones that wretched **_voice_** for the third time.  
  
Out of one fuzzy eye I see my blue circle flashing red. In a fit of irritation I chug both the purified water bottles in record time just to make it **shut up.** "THAT enough water for you?!"  
  
It takes an eternity for the biometric monitor to register. "Fluid intake detected. Vital signs stabilizing."  
Why thank you, Captain Obvious. Next you'll be confirming that jumping off a cliff is a bad idea!  
  
I want it to stop. Even worse than I want coffee. I want to MAKE it stop so bad a conga line of tempting images parades through my head. _Grind it up to little powder between two rocks. Crunchy-crunchy-crunch..._ But as much as I want to silence that **_voice _**I have to grit my teeth at the reality that it is a priceless tool in this situation. But it would be a bit more priceless if the damned volume controls actually DID anything.  
  
In exhausted boredom, I press my thumb down with all my might on the "down" button, willing it to actually turn down the damn volume. Yet again it doesn't do anything. Any more than screaming at the sky will summon a rescue vessel or scrounging for scraps will build us a two-bedroom apartment. It's all so hopeless we don't even have a toilet to poop in. But I have to keep going. This is real life with no game to load from a few days ago or a reset button to push.  
  
Oh what I wouldn't give to do that. With the tap of a finger - _poof_ \- to be back aboard staying up an hour late with a cold drink in one hand and a flight stick in the other, therapeutically blowing up enemy starcraft in my favorite simulation. One button to reset. Reset. Restore. Recovery?  
  
Wait a second.  
  
My brain dusts off a memory so vague that the voice is unclear. Like an old magnetic tape degraded almost past understanding. Something about a class _long _ago. About two buttons. What about them? Gears spin in my head as I examine my PDA. Three 'hard' buttons - ones you can actually push - one to go to the home menu and two for volume. That's been the standard in cheap mass-produced tablets since the mid-21st century.  
  
Holding any one of them down never does anything. What about both the volume buttons? Does nothing. One volume button and 'home'? Trial and error. What can possibly go wrong with trying, anyhow.  
  
Ten seconds - nothing. Fifteen. Twenty. Twenty-five. Oh what the hell it was worth _and then the screen goes blank_. THE SCREEN. GOES. BLANK. Black, dead and silent as the grave. My heart runs up my throat to peek out my mouth. Father Time stops just to say "hi there sonny! You really done screwed up this time! Maybe you should just go kick one of them big toothy fish in the face to make sure you die sooner!"  
  
All the water sloshing around in my stomach threatens to come back up my mouth or out my tear ducts. Or maybe **both**. I can feel my eyes filling with hot acid as I stare at the empty screen waiting for nothing.  
  
.  
..  
...  
***BOOTLOADER .8b ***  
CONNECT: NONE -  
UP/DOWN - HOME TO SELECT  
1\. Normal boot  
2\. Update (ERR - NO NET)  
3\. SYSTEM RESERVED  
  
A sob dies in my mouth as the tiny green words about the same time as the hair on the back of my neck stands on end. My fingers shake so badly I resort to pushing the buttons with a knuckle instead of a fingertip. At least three times I look and look again that "1" is selected. The vertical home button gives way with the tiniest click.  
  
More blackness. Then the dancing blue pyramid appears on screen. _Without_ a giant orange banner about emergency mode.  
  
"**All-tee-raaah**"

* * *

I'm contemplating the wisdom of immediately revealing my _brilliant discovery_.  
  
Being a woman, Kate had far more social content on her tablet. Pictures, videos, notes, all manner of artifacts from half a decade of interaction with hundreds of friends from the most casual acquaintance to her 'bestie'. Of course all those friends are _recently deceased_ which made it about ten minutes before she found something that sent her into such a full-blown screaming/crying meltdown that I've found it necessary to escape the escape pod. The invaluable repair tool and a nutrient block were all I was able to snitch from the storage compartment before Kate, in a mindless frenzy of grief, swatted me away while gibbering incomprehensible. If the chair in the escape pod was uncomfortable then my current 'seat' is positively torture - straddled atop a coral 'horns' that just barely sticks up above the waves.  
  
A drop of water suddenly tickles my ear. Of _course _it's about to start raining.  
  
I absentmindedly reach to wipe the moisture away with one hand. But my head moves just enough to spot a pattern of menacing points gliding through the water. A pattern I know _all too damn well._  
  
"KATE!!!"  
  
She can't hear me. She **won't** hear me, I realize as I yank my legs off from either side of my uncomfortable perch before they're ripped off at the knee by the lurking predator. Even if both of the lifepod's hatches weren't closed my voice would be drowned out by the sound of the waves. Swimming out to warn her would be suicide but staying here is little better! I grab for my PDA to send her an urgent bulletin - but my hand hits against the upper lip of the horn. There's not even an audible splash as my only link to the world spirals down into the blue gloom of the alien ocean.  
  
I debate for a second and decide to swim back out at the lower end of the tube rather than jump out from the top. A splash from something as big as me will be like ringing the dinner bell. As I stick my head - carefully - out past the 'bell' I sympathize with primitive man peering out of his cave looking for sabre-toothed tigers. To have inadequate self-defense against things whose senses and brute strength far surpass your own is a terrible fear indeed.  
  
The cost is not 'all clear'. I just can't see where the Sawback is lurking. Not in the murk of an alien twilight. Especially not when Sawbacks are the only fish I've seen that _don't glow in the dark_. A brilliant adaptation in a world where all the prey species light up like New Las Vegas. My oxygen is counting down and so are the unknown seconds until something happens to Kate. With all the pathetic speed I can muster, I'm off for a quick round-the-block. Through the lens of adrenaline my every movement is hopelessly clumsy and my swimming sluggish. Halfway around now. Do I scan the bottom for my dropped treasure or around me for toothy death? WHERE do I look around me?! Up? To the side?  
  
I'm In front of the coral tube now and I look and I can't see it and I look over my shoulder _and I can't see anything_. Still my air supply shrinks as the plants around me light me up for the gnawing death soon to come for the fool who left his only shelter - **_there!_** On a half-moon of royal purple, bending the tender leaf over with its weight. My hand is claw-like as I snatch it up and flee back to my poor shelter. I half expect to see a toothy face smirking at me as I round the bend to the bottom entrance or looming in from the top. More precious seconds pass as I fumble to get my head above water level but not expose myself outside. Even typing on a keypad becomes absurd with my fingers made clumsy by fear.  
  
>BIG ASS SCARY FISH WITH LOTS OF TEETH OUTSIDE  
>fine i didnt want to swim anyway  
>IM SERIOUS KATE! STAY INSIDE! ONE CAME AFTER ME EARLIER!  
>didn't eat u 8p ?  
  
I swear so much I run out of English words and start on my old Academy vocabulary. Either Kate doesn't believe what she hasn't seen or is choosing to deny the dangers. All I can do now is hope she listens while I try to make myself comfortable inside the coral horn where I'm only mostly safe. Though the Sawback is too long to turn around inside the horn, it may well be used to swimming _through _them. If it does I'm going to be a very convenient meat snack wrapped up in a crunchy shell.  
  
I didn't just feel the wall my leg is squashed against vibrate. Nope. Just my imagination. Or maybe one of those clumsy fish that have glowing acne on their butts bumped against -  
  
**_"RAHAAAK!"_**  
  
_mommy_.  
  
Clever girl. It knows that someone is home even if it can't see.

I've spent _another_ eternity spent in a space even more cramped than the last. Now I've been saved...by an explosive fish.  
  
I finally got Kate to look out the top of the lifepod, just in time to see it snap up a meal, tearing the frail body of its prey apart with its dagger-like teeth. From the horrified reaction I take it my fellow survivor hasn't watched a nature show in some time. We were just starting to text each other what to do about the monster between point A and point B when a muffled _**ka-phoom**_ came from nearby. The marauding Sawfish flashed away, streaming green blood from its mangled face. I could almost feel sorry for what's going to happen when its' packmates catch the scent.  
  
Another piece of Kate's mind crumbled as I finally boarded the lifepod with relief. Her burns were a painful accident, eating wild-caught fish an inconvenience to a sushi lover. But she didn't put a finger near her PDA or make the faintest objection while I lectured her about how low we had fallen on the food chain. The brief period of comfort provided by denying reality was shattered by the brutal demonstration of "nature red in tooth and claw". She's a frightened amateur adrift with a poor trainer. We'll **both **be learning as we go - but our room for error is small and time is not on our side.Her training starts tomorrow. For one more day, "stay close to and stay out of trouble" will have to suffice.  
  
In the meantime I might have an idea to get to a large wreck on the edge of the irradiated area. It merely requires me to barge in on the home of some short-tempered predators.

* * *

  
Swimming to where I last remembered the wreckage took me uncomfortably far from our tiny home, hanging on to my improvised flotation device with one hand. Tying two air bladders together with a length keeps me reasonably bouyant...but only so long as I keep them both close at hand. A little trial let me know I can - barely - swim with one if need be. Swimming is already awkward enough that I don't dare try to tow a locker behind me. The first trip will be for only what I can easily carry.  
  
I waste too much time finding the wreckage again, and stop to catch my breath on the top of another coral tube a few feet below the waterline. It looks larger now that I have more than a half-second to look. A roughly cube-shaped piece of the ship a couple stories tall. I'm trying not to think about the fact that I'm in the 'danger zone' when everything suddenly starts going dark. VERY dark. In a matter of seconds it's as if someone flipped a light switch in a windowless room. The bluish haze of the water fades into a giant inky gloom, until all I can see are the ghostly lights of the alien life. I kick off from the tube to the surface to find the sky itself staring down at me with a baleful orange eye amidst a veil of blackness.  
  
The rational part of my mind tries to reassure me that it's only an eclipse, but I can't stop myself from shaking at vague thoughts of some extraterrestrial horror blotting out the sun itself. Without a flashlight I'm helpless until it passes - stranded where I swim for something as simple as a lack of _light._ It takes little imagination to see how my ancestors would grab at any explanation for something so terrifying or use it as inspiration for a hair-raising horror movie. For the world to go dark around you in the middle of the day without warning is triggering my flight-or-fight response hard because I'm so vulnerable in the water. I can't run, I can barely fight, and I can't even stand on solid ground as the thing darkening the sky looms over the ravaged corpse of the Aurora.  
  
And **why **is the moon so damn **orange?**  
  
Slowly the sky brightens, as if the moon seems to reluctantly to let the sun shine again. I'm no astronomer but between the size and speed it seems to move means that the moon is quite close to the planet itself. If that orbit is _decaying_...  
  
I have to grab that thought and mentally stuff it in the closet as I venture closer toward my goal until I'm hovering over the site of the wreckage. A jumble of boxes helpfully labeled "CARGO", support girders twisted like spaghetti, an assortment of metallic fragments strewn about. Almost nothing is even small enough to swim home with and none of it looks actually _helpful_. Of the two doors I can see one still has its status display working. "Locked". Naturally, it was set to stay shut in the event of a large scale hull breach, and I don't have a cutting tool. All this way for nothing. Unless...the solution_ isn't _to break something. If the automatic response to damage is "lock", would the human programming it make the response to the _absence _of damage "unlock"?  
  
There's a junction box to the left of the door, now a tangled mess of wires. It's as good a place as any to start. I hit the inflate/deflate button on the air bladders and brace my arms outward to land on the hull nearby. The repair tool thrums in my hands as white sparks dance at the tip like a mad fairy. Pointing the dang thing is easy enough, but with no real training on how to actually use it I have to just start 'painting' anything that looks sufficiently busted until the battery runs dead or it looks fixed.  
  
I 'paint' a way larger area than I should. But suddenly a flicker on the display catches the corner of my vision - the display still says "locked" but the orange dots have changed to green. I have to grab my floating aid and go up for fresh air, my heart pounding even harder as I return to press on the latch. As the door slides open my hope rises higher than the clouds before plummeting deep as the sea.  
  
The interior is a disheartening jumble of lockers, boxes and tables. Nothing has been spared from the violent descent. There's scarcely a fragment of machinery left recognizable as my eyes drift aimlessly over the ruins. Besides the hollow cargo boxes the only thing not crushed to junk are the wall displays, screens still displaying some meaningless data. On one wall is a ventilation and emergency access shaft I'm not nearly dumb enough to try and squeeze down.  
  
This isn't a salvage mission. I've expended half my battery and braved deadly radiation to sift through a trash heap. All I can think about as I morosely swim back is that I'm in deep. Deep water, literally. Deep...trouble, metaphorically.  
  
Counter-intuitively, the only possible way out is to get myself even **deeper**. If most of the hand tools we need so badly are already smashed to junk, then we need to find lots of wreckage to increase our chances of finding anything intact. Which means the few pieces of the ship that lie in shallow waters are not going to suffice. It's an obvious fact I'd been hoping to skirt but with the Aurora's hull deadly to approach that slim chance has gone flying off with the satellites.  
  
Again I try to come up with some efficient way of searching the nearby area with muscle power, while swimming vertical distances akin to climbing a building and walking back down again. And I got _nothin_. Automatic mapping is of course right out. A grid-search would be the obvious next step if I had _any _reference to divide the world up into nice neat squares. The lifepod's display screen is stuck on the system status display with no obvious way to change it - would it have _killed_ the beancounters back home to stick on a civilian-grade sonar - and my bog-standard tablet is even less useful. EPSI suits like Kate's and mine come with a rudimentary waypoint management system, but it can only track existing beacons. Without any GPS or other frame of reference it can't know where "X marks the spot".  
  
There were lockers full of deployable land/sea/space beacons back on the Aurora. Now I don't even see one on the fabricator's list. I really am down to one reference point: the lifepod. Swimming out in a straight-ish line to go out, find something and come home is the new way to go now. Like a caveman. Without a club, or a fire, or soft tiger skins to sleep on.  
  
You know your living situation sucks rotten eggs when living in a _cave_ would be an _**upgrade**_.

*****  
Now with illustrations!  
[Into the danger](https://imgur.com/gallery/fqb6rGl)  
[Terror of the sky](https://imgur.com/gallery/qHdd5rN)


	11. A taste of Subnautica

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Swimming a mile in Ryley Robinson's swimfins is one thing, but what about having his kind of breakfast?
> 
> And what survival gear *should* he have had from the start?

Have you ever wondered what breakfast on Planet 4546B would look like for a survivor?

Pictured above is a hearty breakfast of 6 oz plain water, salt, fish and seaweed.  
  
This humble fare took some doing to assemble. Since the fauna in Subnautica is fictional, a catfish fillet stands in as a generic fish. Being as I live in a landlocked state the raw, unflavored, untreated seaweed was monstrously difficult to find until a clerk at Baker's pointed me to their website where it was available by delivery only. If you're curious to munch on some yourself, [here's the link.](https://ship.bakersplus.com/p/728028023237/seasnax-organic-seaweed-10-sheets)  
  
So...how does this all actually taste? In short: FISHIER THAN SEAWORLD.  
  
The seaweed itself tastes like purified green fish oil and the unseasoned baked catfish has a strong flavor. Making a 'wrap' out of the two is an experience that, from the first cautious bite, is probably about like biting into a fish minus the scales. Even for someone who loves seafood...it took all my willpower just to finish it and I still turned greener than a field of clover. The salt provides only the barest relief for your tastebuds as they're being assaulted by weapons-grade fish taste. This was a world apart from the 'seafood' that Westerners like myself are used to - tucked away beneath a half-pound of oil, batter and seasoning.  
  
Immediately after managing to swallow the last bite of my "Ryley wrap" I drained the entire bottle of water at a gulp in an attempt to purge the fish-taste that was haunting my palate so bad that my mouth had become a sequel to Room 1408. It took three bottles to even begin to stop breathing fish-breath so strong that my cat kept trying to climb on my lap and sniff my face. As i type this hours later I still am glad that I don't work with people face-to-face at my job, otherwise I'd definitely have been offered a breath mint or a few pointed comments about personal hygene.  
  
I'd have to be half-starved or crazier than I already am to subsist on this fare daily. And I don't have to deal with seasickness or mental trama beyond that caused by this little culinary excursion. If I were absolutely forced to eat this for breakfast every day, I don't think I could go more than a few days without putting myself at more risk than I'm usually comfortable with for the CHANCE to have 'civilized' food again.

**AN: What equipment _should _Lifepod 5 have been carrying?**  
  
It's no secret that the storage compartment in Lifepod 5 is laughably under-equipped. Even audio logs from other survivors mention having gear the player can only wish for - Lifepod 3 had a seaglide, for one example.  
  
But even without an underwater tug, handy as it would be, just what should have been stuck in the compartment for when the fertilizer really hit the fan? Real-world seafaring provides a good answer: a "ditch bag". Aka a "flee bag", "abandon-ship bag" or per one anonymous U.S. Navy sailor, an "oh sh!t kit". It's a waterproof red bag that floats and contains everything needed to help other people find you quickly, and some things in case they _don't_.  
  
Let's compare the contents of [a ditch bag for oceangoing vessels](https://www.landfallnavigation.com/abandon-ship-bag-off-shore-kit.html) to the gear found in Lifepod 5.  
  
Lifepod 5:  
\- 2x All-Environment Protection Suits  
\- 2x Ready-to-eat nutrient blocks  
\- 2x Drinking water provision  
\- 1x Emergency medkit  
\- 2x Emergency flares  
  
LANDFALL ABANDON SHIP BAG KIT: OFFSHORE  
(1) ACR Global-Fix V4 406 [EPIRB](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_position-indicating_radiobeacon_station)  
(3) PW SOLAS Flare Hand Held Red  
(3) PW SOLAS Flare Parachute Red  
(2) PW SOLAS Flare Orange SmokeCan  
(1) Standard Horizon HX890 DSC/GPS/FM VHF Radio  
(5) AAA HD Alkaline Batteries, back up for the VHF  
(1) Ultimate Survival StarFlash Mirror  
(1) Fluorescent Dye Marker  
(1) Sirius Signal SOS Distress Light  
(6) Emergency Space Blankets  
(2) Pelican Pocket SabreLite Flashlights  
(4) C HD Alkaline Batteries, for Pelican lights  
(12) Light Stick, WHITE 12 Hour  
(30) Emergency Drinking Water Packs  
(1) Emergency LifeRaft First Aid Kit  
(1), Comprehensive Guide to Marine Medice Handbook  
(1) Seasickness Tablets, 12 (one dozen pack)  
(1) Perko Manual Fog/Air Horn  
(1) Suunto Hand Bearing Compass  
(1) [Garmin 73 Waterproof GPS](https://buy.garmin.com/en-US/US/p/517154#overview)  
(1) [PUR Srvr 06 Manual Watermaker](https://www.landfallnavigation.com/katadyn-survivor-06-ls-manual-watermaker.html?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI2ZKg4oSQ5QIVEr7ACh1pUALOEAQYASABEgKeSPD_BwE)  
  
Even stripping the respective lists down to items available in-game, Lifepod 5 is woefully unprepared.  
  
Just look at an apples-to-apples comparison: a dozen light sticks versus **zero**. 30 water rations instead of **2**. _No _flashlights and _no _batteries. An automated beacon (that has to be repaired) [versus a handset capable of actually communicating](http://www.standardhorizon.com/indexVS.cfm?cmd=DisplayProducts&ProdCatID=85&encProdID=182D978C9908C3DD4EBE62DC0E44BFED&DivisionID=3&isArchived=0). **A freaking portable water purifier**. A GPS and a compass versus virtually no wayfinding until you scan a couple beacons and scrounge up the materials for more.


	12. Close encounters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A distraction becomes a discovery.

Despite talking my ear off about the loss of everything civilized, Kate is now firmly content to catch fish and grab what few scraps lie in the nearby region we touched down in. The evening after I returned in disgrace from my venture near the Aurora we saw something even worse than a Sawback: _two _of them. Both fighting to the death over a mate or food or territory. Even for the short time their battle was visible above water...the sight was brutal beyond words. A spreading cloud of green staining the water as two warriors of the deep coiled their snakelike bodies into coils and ripped chunks out of each other until one of them began to sink, violent thrashing slowing to feeble twitching.  
  
All I could think about was that the observing Sawbacks didn't take the opportunity to attack the weakened member or degenerate into a feeding frenzy. Whatever had happened had been between those two. A clue that they have an effective - if brutal - hierarchy of some sort.  
  
The most violence I've ever seen in the animal kingdom was two stray cats getting in a tussle. Even videos of severe animal injury are age-restricted on most planetary comm networks. To watch this unfold just a few minutes away from our temporary home is soul-shaking. Kate held onto me harder than in the last crisis for comfort but I had little to give. I imagine this is a shadow of what a desperately poor person lives with. Unstoppable brute violence so close to where you lay your head, that you can't get away from. In any case it's a definite motivation to keep "Operation: Reach" a go today. Safe shallows, these _aren't._  
  
Before venturing out I have to set limits on time and distance. The large section of wreckage was 400 meters away, the farthest I've swum so far, so I'll start by heading 400 meters out in whatever direction before stopping to assess what I've seen so far. Turn back at 1000 meters in any case because I'm unsure how far the EPSI can track the Lifepod's beacon. Naturally, there's no documentation anywhere on either of our PDA's about that rather useful fact, so I'll just have to take care not to get lost alone at sea.  
  
With that cheerful thought, I'm off. A knife in my hand, hope in my heart, and the inextinguishable human desire to explore the unknown driving me onward...oh _enough_ of that nonsense. The 'fish wrap' I had this morning is bouncing around in my stomach like unsecured cargo while I'm looking over my shoulder every 5 seconds. Like a predator all my vision is fixed straight ahead, except I'm no longer at the top of the food chain. But as I swim onward there is nothing particularity threatening as the rambling cliffs drop away, except perhaps a pair of fat things that swim clumsily with their tails full of green boils. They don't look aggressive but it's hard to say which end of them looks uglier. A few columns of stone jut up from below, worn away in the middle to a vague hourglass shape by countless centuries of erosion.  
  
Oddly, one is surrounded by giant chunks of rock floating in mid-water, buoyed up by the jelly-like bags with teeth. The "Floaters" appear to have a small colony. I ponder their potential uses. If a half-dozen of them can lift a 100 pound boulder afloat, could one or two keep the Lifepod afloat if it springs a leak? Could enough of them support a platform? Perhaps...a small _island?_ "Determine lifting capacity of Floaters" I type into my PDA's notepad. They're ugly and have a mouthful of sharp teeth, but so do many other animals useful to mankind. If my distant ancestors could tame donkeys I think I can handle a few floating jellybags.  
  
Then a tremendous bass moan startles me from my hypothesizing. Another lone floating boulder-like creature hangs in the distance, much larger than the others I've seen. Definitely an old fellow with a veritable reef growing on the top of his back. Reef....back. Reefback. Now _there's _a name for them. So why is this one all by himself? I decide the expedition can stand being put on hold for a few minutes while I investigate this living relic. As I swim closer alongside another deep-throated call rumbles through the water. It's a sound that is as much felt as heard, like standing in front of a giant underwater subwoofer that doesn't just rumble in your chest but makes your whole body vibrate.  
  
"Lone Ranger" has definitely been around awhile. Its natural carapace has grown a tiny coral reef complete with swaths of reddish grass sprinkled with luminescent blue-green weeds. An odd basket-like plant flails oddly from the motion of its host as a giant purple leaf wags from side to side like a metronome. And from at least two places I see bulbous pale purple corals emitting bubbles of gas, giving this astounding creature the vague appearance of an underwater steam engine.  
  
A microcosm of alien life is slowly floating by me. This smorgasbord of fauna is all unknown to science, to the best of my knowledge, atop a behemoth that is as harmless as it is amazing. All I can think to do is swim down and stretch my hands out to grab onto the stony surface of the coral. At first it seems nothing happens. But as I let my tired legs relax I can feel myself being slowly pulled along for the ride. Carefully I run one hand through a patch of red grass to feel the mass of thin blades pass around my outstretched fingers. The creature lets out another call, different this time. It vibrates my very bones, tickles my eardrums to the point of madness for an instant.  
  
I scarcely remember to exhale in the sudden silence that follows. This is _wonderous_. Something out of a fairy tale. I've hitched a ride on something the size of a small shuttle with a glowing forest on its back, sailing to some unknown destination. All too soon the air-supply warning interrupts my brief vacation from cruel reality. Bidding my hitchhiked ride adieu, I surface to get fresh air and my bearings. 432 meters from the Lifepod the little blue numbers tell me. Brilliant. But landmarks? Once again, it's the middle of the damn ocean. Besides the flaming wreckage the only thing that might possibly provide a reference is a vague mass of low-hanging clouds. If indeed they are indeed low hanging and my eyes aren't playing a trick on me.  
  
So much for looking around! Far under me is two spires of stone poking up like a grotesque pair of eyes from some freakish faceless monster. But just under them, barely visible, is a jagged cluster of shapes wrapped around and through and over each other. **Wreckage.** A wordless howl of joy echoes through my helmet as I set course for the ocean bottom far below. First a free ride - then dropped off _right_ where I needed to go? In a sea full of hungry monsters to whom I am but an appetizer, this benevolent behemoth has all of my gratitude.  
  
As a parting echo gently thrums through the water I only wish I could respond in kind.


End file.
